Opinion: IoT - A world of hurt for healthcare, maybe

Not a day seems to go by when IoT doesn’t hit the security headlines as a terrible source of vulnerabilities waiting to be targeted and exploited. In fact, only recently did the FDA issue advisory warnings about a whole suite of vulnerabilities in IoT devices that could affect everything from neonatal incubators through to anaesthesia machines. These were dubbed “The Urgent 11”, which for some reason seems like it should be the title of a Quentin Tarantino movie, but I digress. The fact of the matter is the state of IoT is acknowledged as being woeful from a security perspective. As attackers start to focus even more on healthcare, the vulnerabilities to exploit this will be bountiful. Here’s the problem though. All this fear isn’t necessarily reflecting the actual risks that clinicians, IT leaders and hospital management need to be concerned with. Just because a vulnerability exists doesn’t mean a medical device will become a prime target.