COVID-19 Q&A
Post COVID-19 Perspectives on Impacts to the Healthcare IoT
Cybersecurity Solution Market Interview of Jonathan Langer
We’re joined here today by Jonathan Langer, Medigate’s CEO and Co-founder. As there’s not much sense talking around the elephant in the room, I think we can both agree that COVID-19 has brought the need for clinical network visibility and cybersecurity into sharper focus. In fact, even before the crisis, industry analysts were predicting a surge in demand for solutions like Medigate’s. While no business wants to be seen as opportunistic in the current market, ev- eryone knows that cybercriminals have taken advantage of COVD-19. In light of this, our conversation with Jonathan will explore how healthcare organizations can become more proactive in their evolving security practices.
So, I’ll start by asking whether you agree with the analysts, meaning, do you expect to see an uptick in demand for IoT cybersecurity
technologies as a result of COVID-19? Yes, we do. Unfortunately, the phrase “there is no honor among thieves” applies to cybercriminals. We feared that hospitals would be targeted during the COVID-19 pandemic so we weren’t surprised when INTERPOL issued an alert earlier this month confirming it. Perhaps even more troubling is not knowing what will be dis- covered when the dust settles. We’re primarily seeing an acceleration in
three different areas. 1) Our larger health systems want to bring additional hospitals online more quickly than initially planned.
2) The adoption of our security policy engine has accelerated as customers try to speed-up their network segmentation efforts. 3) Interestingly, inquiries about enabling security to telehealth workflow have increased.
I do think it’s safe to say that COVID-19 has emphasized the need for asset visibility and integrated security capabilities and I don’t believe that’s going to change.
In terms of the increased demand for solutions projected by the analysts, do you think certain capabilities will be viewed differently by evaluation
teams after the crisis? Yes, to be specific, I believe that com- pany-focus, client experience and
healthcare-specific capabilities will carry more weight and be scored differently after the crisis. Because the crisis has surely highlighted the need for increased opera- tions agility, vendors that are dedicated to healthcare, and can be relied on to deliver healthcare-specific insights, will be more valued. Along those lines, I think that competitive evaluations will be less about checking a box, and more about evalu- ators reaching out to peers and getting out from behind their desks to actually see healthcare-operationalized examples of the key capabilities they deem critical to their success. Put another way, cross- industry vendors that have traditionally relied on describing how a feature devel- oped for another industry can be success- fully abstracted to healthcare are going to be more challenged. The value of a dedi- cated solution and relevant subject matter expertise cannot be overstated. Although the right skill-sets and engineering respon- siveness are naturally more appreciated in times of crisis, provider support expecta- tions should remain higher when things return to “normal.”
Ok, let’s go deeper into your assertion that a healthcare-specialized focus is vital. Can you give me an example of where the difference between the
two manifests itself? Sure.
Solution evaluators must under-
stand that cross-industry methods based on statistical models, often marketed as “AI,” were developed to scale their abil- ity to identify general IoT endpoints. And don’t get me wrong, that method works well in cases where a device’s MAC and IP address may be all you need to know. In healthcare, however, you need to know a lot more and capturing the underlying data is far more challenging. Medical and clinical devices often communicate via undocumented, proprietary protocols. If you don’t know those protocols, you’re out of luck. Furthermore, as medical devices are connected to patients, they can’t be scanned and agents cannot be installed without violating manufacturer warranties. Security posture, status and location are ever changing. Simply put, you have to know what you’re looking for, and that requires deep knowledge of
Jonathan Langer CEO and Co-founder
Medigate
healthcare’s connected landscape. You must be able to passively capture the data and add the context that makes it relevant to different groups of users and comple- mentary systems. Otherwise, established workflows will not be enhanced, and new workflows, where needed, cannot be created.
Thanks for your time Jonathan. Before we end, do you have any additional comments that you think
would be helpful to our readers? Yes, I do have a comment, because as you might expect, I’ve had numerous con- versations about COVID-19 in this very same context over the last few months. I’ll say it this way. The fear mongering typical of some vendors in these times of crisis is done at their own peril. Because if the cyber risks associated with patient- centered clinical networking aren’t yet self-evident, they soon should be. Perhaps when the COVID-19 crisis has passed, our conversations about healthcare cyberse- curity can shift from long debated dis- cussions about the risks to working real world solutions. And because solution maturity is not going to level the playing field in healthcare, but increase vendor differentiation, perhaps we can all work on improving the ways we learn, promote, evaluate and select the emerging technol- ogies targeting this very particular, highly nuanced problem space.
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