Read this blog to know the challenges that come with security and privacy with IoT healthcare devices be it unauthorized access, device hijack, privacy violations, so this write may help you understand the top ways to cope up with by analyzing the security, using a secured cloud platform.

1. Security and Privacy Issues with IoT
Healthcare Devices
First things first, though the Internet of things or IoT as it’s called needs no introduction, IoT is the
networking of physical devices that are connected through a single server.
As per research by Reports and Data, the global IoT in Healthcare Market is forecasted to grow at a
rate of 19.8% from USD 60.83 Billion in 2019 to USD 260.75 Billion in 2027. The scope and benefits
of IoT in healthcare can be majorly associated with trends about innovations in medicine, medical
devices, and overall healthcare service delivery for maximum customer satisfaction.
These devices give you the liberty to be connected remotely across an active network infrastructure
that allows better integration of devices with your computer systems. This kind of integration helps
with improved efficiency and accuracy adding to a ton of economic benefits for you and your clients.

2. Today IoT has a huge influence on the healthcare sector that involves easy monitoring of patients and
using such data for better analytics. Talking about IoT for medical device integration, the focus has
shifted towards the end consumer needs that include medical devices made to record data of the
patients’ everyday vitals. A lot of this process is automated that includes auto-generated reports and
treatment recommendations. The hiccup that arises here is the little importance companies give to the
privacy of this data. Easy accessibility of such critical information to someone outside or even within
the system gives them the power to severely injure or even kill someone without being detected. The
rise of such hackable medical devices has pushed the food and drug administration (FDA) to issue
formal guidance on how such cyber vulnerabilities must be handled. Today we have enough QA
consulting companies that deliver step-by-step guidance on how to proceed with safely releasing a
medical healthcare device into the market.
This write up will focus on the various security and privacy issues healthcare based applications face
and what measures companies can take to secure their healthcare IoT devices.
Security and Privacy Issues with IoT in
Healthcare:
DDoS with IoT Devices
Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS as it’s called is a non-intrusive internet attack carried out to
dismantle the targeted website that eventually slows down the functionality of a server, application or
network by flooding it with fake users traffic. This essentially means that a server is denying its
service to the user resulting in the system crashing. There are various methods used to prevent your
application from a DDoS trap that mostly uses malicious botnets. Off lately, the code of malware that
builds botnets out of IoT products was publicly released that instantly increased the number of IoT
devices infected by it to more than 450,000 approximately. The same value was close to 200,000
before. Imagine the amount of collateral damage this must have caused internally putting the security
of thousands of application’s data at risk.
Wearable Technology and Associated Security Risks

3. The latest invention in the IoT for healthcare devices that rolled into the market has been wearable
technology. Gadgets like smartwatches, wrist bands, smart monitors and other associated wearable
devices work as extensions to your mobile devices and give access to news, notifications, texts,
emails and much more. They come with an inbuilt sensor that measures your stress, SPO2, sleep and
what not, but when it comes to security most of these devices fail to save you from malicious attacks.
Issues that range from personal data exposure to user interfaces that lacked two-factor authentication
or the aptitude to freeze accounts after multiple failed password attempts all contributed to the
extreme levels of vulnerability your integrated IoT devices can expose you to.
Top 4 Ways To Secure Your Healthcare IoT
Devices
IoT Security Analytics
When it comes to healthcare, it is essential to track all major activities happening in your IoT enabled
devices and applications. This can be accomplished by IoT security analytics. IoT security analytics
give you notifications about potential cyber threats in your app well in advance, which gives you
enough time to mitigate them before your app goes into a potential data risk. It helps you create a full
proof protection strategy through in-depth data analysis where it uses data procured through different
devices clubbed together.
Software Update
Major IoT devices need remote access and connection via sensors to collect data in the healthcare
industry. Hackers majorly target remote devices integrated through a network because of their limited
security provisions. When it comes to increasing security standards and significantly reducing the
rapidly evolving cyber threats in networks, it’s essential to update your healthcare IoT device software
from time to time.
These software updates help IoT devices incorporate new features by providing secure remote
management firmware along with identifying and eliminating security breaches.
Public Key Infrastructure
Public Key Infrastructure or PKI is a security solution that authenticates devices and users in the
online world. It provides encryption and authentication solutions for all IoT devices that can be used
to gate private patient data and ensure its visible to only concerned departments. A PKI is a common
and useful way of minimising the risks associated with transferring information from one device to
another. It uses a cryptographic key to identify a user or device on an online network. This data can
then be shared with internal departments to check the vulnerability of your application in the latter
stages. The demand for PKIs has increased significantly and in order to enable safe authentication of
your system, you need to install proper healthcare certificates.

4. Secure Cloud Platform
Today cloud platforms are the top preference of all major companies or businesses for data storage.
Similarly, the healthcare sector also uses cloud platforms for storing and transferring essential data
from IoT devices. Therefore, cloud data storage protection becomes a major concern to protect IoT
healthcare devices from data breaches. The way to go ahead is proper authentication control. Some
basic practices that can be adopted include changing passwords at regular intervals and ensuring the
account is blocked for a defined time frame after repeated failed attempts.
Wrapping Up
There have been active researches across the industry that predict the interference of ransomware for a
medical device or wearable technology. It’s obvious that IoT devices are here to stay and their
involvement in healthcare cannot be limited. They help you cut costs and increase the efficiency of
your systems to a great extent.
Hence, it’s is important to ensure that the networks we use run on automated workflows and give
quick access to critical work information while ensuring the security of your applications. This can
easily be accomplished by implementing proper security policies and implementing solutions that
focus on vulnerabilities and configuration assessments, along with proper event monitoring.
Security of IoT healthcare devices isn’t just about figuring out security risks and securing data. It’s
more about building strong and long-lasting relationships with your clients. You need a
strong testing partner to create that kind of impact with your clients. ImpactQA’s dynamic application
security testing services effectively expose your software vulnerabilities to minimize risks and ensure
better security and scalability of your application.
Have a new project in mind? Schedule a call with our experts now!