MITS5004: IT Security Report - Healthcare Information Security

This report critiques the academic paper "Security for Mobile and Cloud Frontiers in Healthcare" by Kotz, Fu, Gunter, and Rubin, focusing on IT security within the healthcare sector. The report highlights the evolution of healthcare systems through technology, particularly IT and IoT integrations, and emphasizes the critical need for robust security measures to protect sensitive patient data. The critique addresses vulnerabilities in healthcare IT systems, including hacking threats and data breaches, and underscores the importance of addressing IT security challenges to prevent exposure of patient information. The report discusses the research methodology, which is based on secondary data, and identifies key findings, such as the potential of IT to improve healthcare, the necessity of designing security mechanisms, and the importance of audit logs. The conclusion stresses the responsibility of the research community to address security challenges and ensure the privacy of patient information. The report also emphasizes the relevance of the chosen article to the study of IT security issues and discusses the article's conclusions regarding the need for secure solutions and clinical workflows in healthcare.

Running head: IT SECURITY
IT Security
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IT SECURITY
Security for Mobile and Cloud Frontiers in Healthcare
David Kotz, Kevin Fu, Carl Gunter, and Avi Rubin
Communications of the ACM
August 2015

2IT SECURITY
Introduction:
Healthcare systems has evolved so much further in the last few decades. Several of
advancements has been observed within the healthcare field and it has actually solved various of
critical problems regarding human diseases [1]. The main reason that the healthcare systems has
evolved that further is the integration of technology. Mainly the information technology has been
utilized for advancement in the healthcare technologies. Integration of the information
technology has provided many of advantages to the healthcare division which includes several of
automation processes. Also, integration of the IoT systems in the healthcare system has also
made it very much advanced [2]. This technology works by collecting various types of data from
the patient’s end. Thus, it is very much important to secure this confidential data stored in the
database. In many of the cases this system has failed to do so.
The above is actually become a crucial issue and currently various of articles are
available regarding healthcare information technology. Regarding this, in this report an article
will be critiqued based on the security of the healthcare information technology. Important
findings from the article will be discussed in this report.
Critique on the Selected Paper:
The paper which has been selected for the critique is the “Security for Mobile and Cloud
Frontiers in Healthcare” where the authors of this article are the David Kotz, Kevin Fu, Carl
Gunter, and Avi Rubin.
Here, brief analysis of the selected paper has been done and from the analysis it has been
assessed that the main intention of this report is describing the current issues in the healthcare
division due to which confidential information of the patients are getting exposed. It has been
assessed that the main reason due to which these important information are getting exposed are
the vulnerability in the healthcare IT systems [3]. In this aspect it has been also assessed that
information are getting as the healthcare organizations are lagging behind to address the known
problem in a proper way. Hacking is also a major threat due to which the important information
of the patients are getting exposed from the information system. For example there are various of
recent breach cases in the domain of healthcare insurance organization. Here, from the article it
has been assessed that the benefits which are provided by the information technology in the

3IT SECURITY
healthcare sector will become elusive if the challenges regarding the IT security is not addressed
in a proper way. Due to this factor security is one of the top concern in the healthcare and in the
mHealth sectors. The information technology is currently holding a great potential for improving
the healthcare sector while it can reduce the expenses of the medicare and can increase the
overall access [3]. For this reason currently most of the organizations are integrating utilization
of the mobile devices, electronic health record and cloud services in their healthcare services.
Still these things will remain obsolete until proper solution is found for addressing the IT
security challenges in the aspect of healthcare services. From the selected article it has been also
assessed that privacy related protection is also very much vital in the IT healthcare section. As
the security attack on the IT healthcare infrastructure breaches the private information of the
patients, it is consisting a negative impact on the privacy of the patients.
Here, for performing the research the authors has utilized secondary type of research
where they have collected important information from various of existing researches. Different
types of information sources regarding information technology in healthcare sector has been
synthesized by the authors. Depending on the synthesisation of this already existing information
the authors has performed their research in the IT healthcare [3]. Thus, this research does not
include any type of primary research and totally based on the secondary type of research
methodology. Some important findings has been also observed from this research. First of all,
this research has properly highlighted the existing issues within the information technology for
the healthcare sector. This article has founded that information technology is carrying some
important potential improvements for the healthcare industry but at first it is very much
important to address the current security challenges in the information technology [3]. Here,
from the research it has been assessed that developers and the designers of the healthcare
information technology can assist to implement the security in by designing the security
mechanism within all type of devices, systems and apps. In this aspect they can also help by
developing new types of practices and polices which will be able to recognize important rights of
the individuals regarding collected information of them [3]. Also, it has been founded that
researchers must take the responsibility of developing new types of methods for the processes of
identification, authentication, software assurance and anonymization of the data. This article has
also identified some critical research challenges in this aspects which includes usable
authentication tools, trustworthy control of the medical devices and trust through accountability.

4IT SECURITY
This report has also founded that audit logs of the IT healthcare system plays an important role
as these are important for monitoring inappropriate type of behaviour. With that these audit logs
are also very much important for supporting the post-event analysis and assists in the
development of the proper type of access control. This article has also founded that automatic
analysis of this type of audit logs will be very much useful as it can detect the anomalies in the
treatment of the patients which can act as a life saviour [3]. Thus, in this way the information
technology is capable of benefiting the current healthcare infrastructure, but first of all it is
important to address all the security related issues present in the information technology for the
healthcare sector.
In this article the important issues that has been highlighted by the author is the security
related challenges in the information technology. Currently, there are several of security related
issues in the information technology. In this aspect hacking is one of the biggest issue and for
this reason integrated data within this technology also get exposed by the hackers. Now, if this
type of information technology is utilized in the healthcare sector then there is a huge chance that
this information system is also going to be hacked [3]. While the information system will be
utilized in the healthcare sector it is quite natural that it will be possessing important information
of the patients. In this case, if the information system is exposed by the hackers then the privacy
of the patients will be also breached. Privacy is very much important for the all the individuals.
Thus, it is crucial to ensure while the information system is implemented in the healthcare
division, proper security of the information system is ensured so that privacy of the patients can
be ensured.
In the conclusion this article has elaborated that it is the responsibility of the research
community to address the practical and fundamental challenges so that the IT healthcare can
achieve the essential security level for proper adoption and successful deployment of the IT
healthcare. More secure solutions is required in the perspective of IT healthcare so that doctors
can achieve a clinical type of workflow in their daily routine [3]. It is very much important to
ensure that the personal information of the patients and their relatives are secured in the
information system so that they can freely accept this type of technology. Thus privacy of the
patients need to be ensured in this case.

5IT SECURITY
Currently, this unit study is related with the IT security issues, where this article has also
discussed about the IT related security issues in the aspects of healthcare sector. Important
security related issues that are present within the healthcare sector has been identified and
discussed in the report. The consequences of this security issues has been also discussed in this
report. Thus, in this way this report is quite relevant with the unit of this study.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be concluded that IT services are very much important
in the present generation so that extra efficiency in the organizational processes can be achieved.
In this report an article has been reviewed that is currently focused on the information
technology within the healthcare sector. In this report the critique of this selected article has been
elaborated. First in this report the paper for the critique has been identified. In the main critique
part of this report first the intention and the main content of the article has been elaborated. From
this it has been identified that the main content of the selected article is describing the
information system in the healthcare sector. In the following section of this report the
methodology used for research has been elaborated. In this aspect it has been identified that
secondary data research methodology has been utilized in this case. Also, the findings gathered
from the research has been elaborated in this report. In the chosen article there is a particular
issues that has been identified by authors. In this aspect comment has been provided on this
highlighted issue by the author. In the further section of this report the conclusion of the selected
article has been discussed how it is relevant with the topics of the unit study has been described.

6IT SECURITY
References:
[1] Y. Zhang, M. Qiu, C. Tsai, M. Hassan and A. Alamri, "Health-CPS: Healthcare Cyber-
Physical System Assisted by Cloud and Big Data", IEEE Systems Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 88-
95, 2017. Available: 10.1109/jsyst.2015.2460747.
[2] C. Thota, R. Sundarasekar, G. Manogaran, V. R and P. M. K., "Centralized Fog Computing
Security Platform for IoT and Cloud in Healthcare System", Fog Computing, pp. 365-378.
Available: 10.4018/978-1-5225-5649-7.ch018.
[3] D. Kotz, K. Fu, C. Gunter and A. Rubin, "Security for mobile and cloud frontiers in
healthcare", Communications of the ACM, vol. 58, no. 8, pp. 21-23, 2015. Available:
10.1145/2790830.