Cancer research and treatment innovation - and the tech that powers that - requires a great deal of collaboration and data sharing among multiple parties. But keeping that sensitive information secure and private is crucial - and requires adherence to standards, said Baxter Lee of Clearwater.

An identity-based microsegmentation deployment at Main Line Health in Philadelphia is helping to control how its roughly 60,000 devices communicate across the network in order to protect clinical operations and limit the impact of potential cyberattacks, said Main Line Health CISO Aaron Weismann.

Attorneys can conduct security risks assessments under the color of client privilege, making it less likely to surface in discovery during litigation. But healthcare firms should consider the cons before they take that route, said attorney Adam Greene, partner at the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine.

Real and intense financial pressures on rural and small healthcare clinics mandate making difficult decisions on allocating funds to cybersecurity, said Greg Sieg, CISO at the University of Michigan Regional Health Network. "The funding is just not there."

Medical device cyber challenges are among the most complex for manufacturers and healthcare delivery organizations for a variety of reasons, but there are some promising developments underway that could help ease the pain, said Phil Englert of the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

For the U.S. healthcare ecosystem, the 2024 ransomware attack on Change Healthcare proved to be a supply-chain earthquake in showcasing critical third-party risk that entities now must carefully and urgently consider, said Erik Decker, CISO of Intermountain Health and a federal cyber adviser.

Long-life medical devices - products typically used for a decade or longer - are among the most post-quantum, cryptographically vulnerable technologies in healthcare, said Joern Lubadel, global head of product security at German-based medical device and healthcare products maker B. Braun.

Rural hospitals and clinics continue to struggle with a lack of cyber resources but a federal grant program set to provide $50 billion worth of funding across all 50 states could hopefully help lessen some of the pain, said Jim Roeder, VP of IT at Lakewood Health System in Minnesota.

To help strengthen the health ecosystem's overall incident response preparedness, the Health Sector Coordinating Council in coordination with the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center will in July host a first-ever nationwide virtual cyber exercise, said Greg Garcia, of the HSCC.

Many healthcare sector organizations are delaying to even begin contemplating - let alone strategizing - how to mitigate post-quantum risk - but procrastination is a major mistake, said Ali Youssef, director of emerging tech security, at Henry Ford Health.