Healthcare IT workers struggle to secure IoT devices during COVID-19 | SC Media

Ventilators and respirators, on the front line against the respiratory symptoms often deadly for coronavirus patients, may seem like natural points of vulnerability for medical organizations, but the real threats come from the flood of high-tech IoT medical equipment that must be integrated into a network and properly secured from attack.

Under normal circumstances hospitals struggle to bring that equipment online, but with the added pressure of dealing with a pandemic medical IT staffs are being pushed to the brink, creating plenty of opportunities for mistakes as they support the efforts to save lives while risking being exposed to the virus themselves.

“A premium is now on speed,” said Greg Murphy, CEO of Order, a company that focuses on protecting connected medical devices. “New devices are coming in with technicians possibly not familiar with the make or the device’s security history so to have them just come in and get connected creates a great deal of risk.”

Murphy called the hospital IT teams heroic noting they too are on the front line working amid patients as they attempt to get equipment in place.

While Order has seen a spike of activity o ..

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