Cyberbiosecurity in Healthcare: Securing Medical Devices from Digital and Biological Threats

Abstract

Technological innovations constantly transform, and these transformations extend over all sectors of life, irrespective of the original innovation's purpose. Due to the need for constant improvements in patient care, new technology is commonly applied to healthcare environments. As the transformation keeps emerging, it, in turn, creates more attack vectors because of the interconnectivity in these devices. These interconnectivity features are why they are called smart devices. The smart device explains why they can connect to networks, process data, and interact intelligently with their environment and users. As these devices create attack vectors due to their interconnectivity, so do we have to pay attention to these attack vectors. Effects of biological data falling into the wrong hands should be of concern in the health sector due to its potential effect on the health of a patient and on the reputation of the health organization. Efforts have been made to safeguard data in the health sector, like the HIPPA framework, designed to protect sensitive patient health information. But there is a need to go beyond focusing on just personal data to broader aspects of the health sector, like cyber threats in medical devices. While cyberbiosecurity literature exists in industries like maritime, food and agriculture, no consideration has been given to the health sector. With the innovations in medical devices, there is a need for a nexus between cybersecurity and biosecurity, to maximize their abilities to tackle the loopholes created by this technological development.  Cyberbiosecurity bridges this gap by shifting the focus on how to secure the different aspects of these devices like the software, firmware, and hardware. This research explores the emerging field of cyberbiosecurity by outlining the key digital and biological threats in medical devices and implications, challenges in securing medical devices and propose a framework for solid cyberbiosecurity practices to mitigate the risk in medical devices