Connecting the Pieces of Zero

Ryan has been a magazine and newspaper editor for 21 years, with the last 15 covering a variety of bases for CDW's family of tech magazines. As Editor in Chief, he works on developing editorial strategy and is always on the lookout for new writing talent and sharing great stories with the IT world. In his spare time, Ryan enjoys spending time with his family, biking and obsessively following Iowa Hawkeye sports and Cubs baseball.

Security remains a top priority for healthcare leaders, especially as connected medical devices cause environments to grow more complex and organizations look to digitally enabled solutions such as virtual nursing to augment strained workforces.

A 2023 Health-ISAC report ranks the top five cybersecurity concerns of healthcare executives: Ransomware deployment is No. 1, followed by phishing/spear-phishing attacks, third-party/partner breaches, data breaches and social engineering.

HealthTech identified the stronger adoption of zero-trust security as a major tech trend this year to fortify healthcare organizations against such threats. Zero-trust initiatives have significantly grown across industries, gaining serious momentum from the White House's 2021 order for federal agencies to adopt such strategies by 2024.

As healthcare organizations continue to expand their connected ecosystems, they must take inventory and try to understand an ever-changing threat landscape. They’ll need to cover their bases to weather the storm of malicious actors and device vulnerabilities.

Click the banner below to dive deeper into zero trust and its benefits for healthcare.

"How Healthcare Organizations Are Looking at the Big Picture of Device Security" examines Yale New Haven Health's approach to device security in a complex environment. "It really does require a multilayered approach to get that database of connected equipment together," says Yale New Haven Health Vice President and CISO Glynn Stanton.

Network segmentation was critical for the health system when a medical device vendor faced a ransomware attack in 2021. "Make sure you can segment the network and segment those systems off or out until you can remediate them," Stanton says.

Healthcare security experts share their zero-trust insights in "How to Approach Connected-Device Security from a Zero-Trust Perspective." As CDW healthcare strategists Doug McMillian and Marty Momdjian write, "Healthcare organizations must understand that zero trust is not a security destination but rather a framework that they must work toward continuously."

For a preview of what else is inside the Summer 2023 issue, watch this short video with HealthTech Managing Editor Teta Alim.

RYAN PETERSEN

Follow Ryan @RyanPete