Guest Editorial: Cybersecurity Intelligence in the Healthcare System

THE integration of recent technological advancements in the healthcare industry enhances patient care and life expectancy. It included various smart devices, e-records, radiology information, computerized physician prescriptions, healthcare network, and servers. These supporting components offer efficient and intelligent high-quality care, support improvements, better patient experience, and easy access to healthcare services. However, it concurrently raises cybersecurity risks and attack surfaces in healthcare. Cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats are continuously increasing due to the system’s remotely accessible services via the Internet and digital transformation. Healthcare data are more vulnerable and targeted by cyberattacks because they contain high monetary and sensitive information for patient treatment, diagnosis, and decision purposes. The threats and cyberattacks in the intelligence healthcare system pose a risk to data leakage issues and patient privacy. Cybercriminal activities become more vulnerable if it is performed by overstretched staff with the help of outdated devices. Several cybersecurity threats and attacks are available, making the system more challenging. Such attacks/threats are zeroday ransomware, phishing, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, evil maid attacks, network penetration, cloud storage threats, side-channel, and malware. Cybersecurity includes protecting electronic healthcare information and assets from network vulnerabilities. It provides best security practices and protocols that will help organizations to protect patient safety and privacy. Such security practices include strong authentication and password policy, control and limited access, digital forensics, compliance reporting, government rules and regulations, cryptography, and many more. These cybersecurity practices try to overcome threats and attacks by protecting valuable assets. However, these practices are insufficient due to the complex supply chain, digitized healthcare nature, diversity in staff, and outdated and comprised devices. Numerous recent studies also highlight the shortcomings and gaps in such security practices. Such shortcomings and research gaps motivated to improve cybersecurity practices that make a judiciously balance between technology and security. Thus, the healthcare system requires innovative strategies and cybersecurity practices to achieve secure healthcare services. This Special Section (SS) on “Cybersecurity Intelligence in the Healthcare System” of the IEEE TII is intended to elaborate