Huge health IT groups to Team Up on cyber defense

As cyber threats and attacks increasingly buffet the healthcare industry, 2 prominent agencies are coming together to serve the sharing of threat information.

The National Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center has aligned with the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission, which notifies healthcare vendors and business associates for merging best business practices, will harmonize attempts to decrease the growing danger of HIPAA violations, tragedies and cybersecurity attacks.

The agreement was made through a memorandum of understanding, states Denise Anderson, president of NH-ISAC. The collaboration is important, because there is growing requirement for healthcare agencies to share threat level data; this data has been ineffectively shared in the past because of competitive pressures and the disjointed nature of the industry. As cyber attacks increase against healthcare agency, it will become increasingly significant for threat data to be shared rapidly and widely.

The partnership of EHNAC and NH-ISAC brings new information and perspectives to each agency, Anderson claims. Both agencies have working groups studying threat data problems, like data authentication and access, and members of each agency will join the working group of the other. The agencies also will cooperate on establishing conferences, white papers, web seminars, workshops and other events to promote the sharing of threat data among healthcare agencies.

"We are our own worst enemy, and if we do not come together and share data, the bad people are sharing information, and shame on us," Anderson asserts.

EHNAC and NH-ISAC also work with other suitable entities, like the HITRUST industry collaborative and federal agencies. NH-ISAC members, which involve some of the greatest agencies in healthcare, share information daily, Anderson claims, but overall its members represent only a minor portion of the industry.

We are our own worst enemy, and if we do not come together and share data, the bad people are sharing data. 

In part, that is because cyber attacks are a relatively recent phenomenon in healthcare, as the Internet was not widely accepted and extremely used until the EHRs meaningful use program brought healthcare into the digital period.

To increase awareness and promote the profits of sharing threat data, industry-specific Information Sharing and Analysis Centers were authorized in the year 1998 under a directive from President Bill Clinton. While few industries made their own ISACs soon after that directive, NH-ISAC was not created until the year 2010.

Other industry-specific ISACs involve established financial, retail and Information Technology programs, among others, as well as latest programs covering the airline and automotive industries, which are aggressively linking to the Internet.