Are Your Healthcare Website’s Security Features Up to Par?

Healthcare providers naturally focus on patient care. This can make it easy to neglect website design modernization and innovation.

Cyberattacks against physician practices can put sensitive information at risk, including EHRs and patients’ personal data. Strong authentication processes can prevent many of these attacks by blocking access to your computer network.

1. Strong Authentication

Authentication is the foundation of any cybersecurity system, and healthcare is no exception. The personal health information (PHI) that is stored in healthcare databases and portals makes it an attractive target for hackers who want to steal data and use it for financial gain or to harm patients and providers.

Healthcare websites and patient portals must balance user experience with the security requirements of HIPAA and EPCS compliance. That is why it is important to choose technology that can confirm identity and user intent with the least friction possible. Traditional methods, such as typing codes or passwords into a screen, do not meet the criteria for strong authentication because they are too difficult to navigate and can be bypassed by social engineering attacks like phishing.

Instead, healthcare organizations should consider passwordless authentication and presence-testing solutions that leverage biometrics and identity proofing to offer a seamless experience while providing strong protection against cyberattacks. These technologies should also support the Zero Trust security framework and allow for granular, user-based access control and the use of a single sign-on that combines multiple authentication factors.

This approach is supported by the EU’s Revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2), which requires strong customer authentication for online transactions between payment service providers and consumers in the EEA. While PSD2’s requirements do not specify the exact method of strong authentication, it does call for backup methods that are not stored on a mobile device in case one or more authentication devices are lost or stolen. Ideally, these backup methods will be the same as the original authentication factor.

2. Secure Messaging

Medical professionals need to communicate openly with colleagues to ensure accurate diagnoses, but they also must keep patient data safe. Security breaches in healthcare are expensive and can lead to fines, negative publicity, and loss of trust from patients. Secure messaging in healthcare allows medical professionals to text each other directly from mobile devices while remaining HIPAA-compliant and safeguarding patient privacy.

Messages sent via secure messaging platforms are encrypted, meaning that only the intended sender and recipient can read them. This is achieved through end-to-end encryption, which is an advanced level of encryption that’s similar to a digital padlock. It prevents anyone from monitoring a conversation or reading its contents, even if they are on the same network as the sender or recipient. Secure messaging in healthcare website designs also includes archiving that keeps messages and conversations accessible to team members for reference.

Because healthcare professionals must be able to work remotely, they require access to an efficient communication system that can be used on mobile devices. Using smartphones to text each other can improve the speed and accuracy of care delivery, but it must be done securely so that HIPAA regulations are adhered to. Many smartphone apps don’t offer the same level of compliance required in a healthcare environment, and this can lead to issues with privacy, security, and data integrity.

3. Firewalls

Firewalls filter incoming and outgoing network traffic, preventing malicious code from entering or leaving your healthcare organization. Each piece of data sent over a network is assembled into a packet that includes the sender and recipient’s IP addresses, port numbers, and other information. A firewall analyzes each packet and decides whether it should be allowed into the network based on its ruleset. Firewalls may block specific websites, or they might block the use of certain types of software programs (e.g., email servers). Outbound firewalls can also prevent employees from accessing the Internet for reasons other than work-related tasks.

There are three basic categories of firewalls: Packet Filtering Firewalls; Stateful Inspection Firewalls; and Proxy Firewalls. These categories are based on the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layer classification.

A packet filtering firewall examines each piece of data in a packet and compares that to a database of known good information. If the data is valid, the firewall passes it along to its destination; if not, the firewall will drop the packet. This type of firewall is very effective at preventing many common attacks against networks, but it can be compromised by packets that attempt to exploit known vulnerabilities or other weaknesses in the security system.

If the attack is more sophisticated, a stateful inspection firewall can recognize it and prevent it from entering the network by examining the packet’s information. This firewall maintains a list of established connections, and when a new packet arrives, it checks the header information against the list to determine if it’s part of an existing connection. If it is, the firewall allows the packet to pass; if not, the firewall checks it against a set of rules for new connections and evaluates it accordingly. This type of firewall can be vulnerable to denial of service attacks that spoof trusted address information and exploit established connections.

4. Intrusion Detection

As healthcare companies move more patient information to electronic storage, they must ensure this data stays secure and protected. One way to do so is through intrusion detection. Also known as IDS, an intrusion detection system observes network traffic and monitors the activities of users to detect potential threats. Upon detecting any suspicious activity or security policy violation, the IDS kicks off an offending user and sends an alert to IT personnel.

Anomaly-based detection systems, on the other hand, use machine learning to create – and constantly refine – a baseline model of normal network behavior. This model is then compared to all future network activity. The system flags any deviation from the model, such as a process using more bandwidth than usual or a device opening a port that’s usually closed. This type of IDS is able to catch more new and zero-day threats that may be able to evade signature-based detection, but it can also produce a high number of false positives.

Unlike an IDS, an intrusion prevention system (IPS) doesn’t just report an attack to IT staff. An IPS can actually block the attack from taking place, making it more effective at protecting sensitive data. The IPS is typically located between the firewall and the rest of the network and can prevent attacks by blocking them at the application layer or the protocol layer. This is why many healthcare companies turn to IPS when looking for a complete security solution.

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