Local Encryption ... Why Not?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Technically, encryption is reinventing the wheel. It only helps when companies are not following standard industry security practices. Not that it is uncommon, but it is the less common. The wheel exists because it is useful.
So out of the 100% of hospitals in the US ... how many do you think are fully following best practice?
And what percentage would benefit from just encrypting their endpoints?
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@BRRABill said:
@Jason said:
The current way is about giving an image of security without actual security.
It still hasn't been explained to me how an encrypted hard drive is just an image of security.
We've explained it quite a bit. It's not as secure as the standard "wheel". It encourages lower than normal security and makes it increasingly likely to be insecure.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Technically, encryption is reinventing the wheel. It only helps when companies are not following standard industry security practices. Not that it is uncommon, but it is the less common. The wheel exists because it is useful.
So out of the 100% of hospitals in the US ... how many do you think are fully following best practice?
And what percentage would benefit from just encrypting their endpoints?
Almost all, Because the majority always do things poorly.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It encourages lower than normal security and makes it increasingly likely to be insecure.
In no way am I suggesting we throw caution to the wind because we are using a SED.
It is the final security check, and as has been mentioned prevents you from even having to report a breach in HIPAA settings.
Even if I store all my data in the cloud for my personal machine, I'd still like to have the safety net of the SED, juuuuuuuuuust in case one of my programs isn't working quite the way it supposed to. Now I know all of our programs and products work exactly as they should, and there is no chance of there being any sensitive data on there. (<= DEEP DEEP SARCASM.)
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's amazing.. that whole limited access thing is something I've seen no health system actually implement.
The comment here is that every staff member who has anything to do with the medical side in one way shape or form (that includes me, the IT guy) needs to have full access to all patient information in order to do our jobs.
Frankly, I'm not sure how you build an easy to use system that limits what nurses and medical assistants can get access to, let along actual providers. Remember that near real time granted access would be a requirement in many cases.
In some health systems I've seen them try to limit who has access by requiring things like a patients SSN as proof they are somehow connected with the patient - but that just doesn't seem right to me.
It's actually insanely easy to build. Views by role is a standard security measure in any modern product. Even Spiceworks does this.
Yes sure roles - of course, but in every situation I've seen, the roles of those who 'need' access to patient data, allow full unfettered access to every patient the hospital has on their system (with rare exception - I've seen some systems have a VIP tag for celebrities. this tag would prevent anyone but senior people to have access to those few records, but, the general public... the staff have full access.)
What I'm talking about is - nurse ratchet should only be able to see the patients that her assigned physician is seeing today - or if she's in a call center, accessing the record would require some kind of release from the patient, etc.
Sure we have roles, but really, they are nearly pointless.
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@Dashrender said:
Yes sure roles - of course, but in every situation I've seen, the roles of those who 'need' access to patient data, allow full unfettered access to every patient the hospital has on their system (with rare exception - I've seen some systems have a VIP tag for celebrities. this tag would prevent anyone but senior people to have access to those few records, but, the general public... the staff have full access.)
What I'm talking about is - nurse ratchet should only be able to see the patients that her assigned physician is seeing today - or if she's in a call center, accessing the record would require some kind of release from the patient, etc.
Sure we have roles, but really, they are nearly pointless.
And outside of the roles that the actual medical professionals have, there are many more behind-the-scenes people who do everything from billing to market research.
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Here's an endpoint that I don't think we can get away from.
Phones.
My physicians all have their calendars/appointment books synced with their phones so they know where they need to be and when to be there, as well as the patient name, etc. This needs to be available in an offline manner.
Encryption of this device is a must considering the above. But encryption alone is not enough. Enabling features like wipe after 10 tries or requiring long passwords (more than 12 characters) would be needed to really give these devices any type of real security.
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@BRRABill said:
And outside of the roles that the actual medical professionals have, there are many more behind-the-scenes people who do everything from billing to market research.
Billing people I see right in line with the medical personal - but the market research information could be pulled by a medical and reduced to a smaller subset - the researchers don't need direct access.
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@Dashrender said:
Here's an endpoint that I don't think we can get away from.
Phones.
My physicians all have their calendars/appointment books synced with their phones so they know where they need to be and when to be there, as well as the patient name, etc. This needs to be available in an offline manner.
Encryption of this device is a must considering the above. But encryption alone is not enough. Enabling features like wipe after 10 tries or requiring long passwords (more than 12 characters) would be needed to really give these devices any type of real security.
A lot of e-mail systems support this. Exchange ActiveSync, for example. You can require the device has certain password rules before accepting corporate data. And you can remotely wipe the data or the device.
An even bigger problem in that scenario is things like texting.
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@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill said:
And outside of the roles that the actual medical professionals have, there are many more behind-the-scenes people who do everything from billing to market research.
Billing people I see right in line with the medical personal - but the market research information could be pulled by a medical and reduced to a smaller subset - the researchers don't need direct access.
There are 18 things that qualify as PHI.
Even a list of names is a no-no.
And the issue is, how do we get the billing info to the third party biller? Are they using this "no endpoint data" EHR system? Probably not.
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To drive my point home:
We have fired two people over the last several years because they logged into a health system they were granted access to because our providers work there as well. They illegally gained access to patient data that had no connection to our providers.
Why is this even possible? Obviously it doesn't need to be so.. but it is, everywhere - in every system they have a logon for, they have full or near full unfettered access to all patients in the entire system.
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@BRRABill said:
An even bigger problem in that scenario is things like texting.
I'm frustrated that we can't prevent texting!
Three technologies I'd love to see die:
PSTN
SMS/MMS
emailThese technologies by themselves offer zero or near zero security or authentication or privacy.
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@Dashrender said:
To drive my point home:
We have fired two people over the last several years because they logged into a health system they were granted access to because our providers work there as well. They illegally gained access to patient data that had no connection to our providers.
Why is this even possible? Obviously it doesn't need to be so.. but it is, everywhere - in every system they have a logon for, they have full or near full unfettered access to all patients in the entire system.
Right. That is something I think would be fixed with @scottalanmiller 's suggestions.
Encryption does nothing for that.
Except for when that same employee who should know better does that on a laptop and it gets stolen. And the the auditors trace that. Uh-oh.
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@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill said:
An even bigger problem in that scenario is things like texting.
I'm frustrated that we can't prevent texting!
Three technologies I'd love to see die:
PSTN
SMS/MMS
emailThese technologies by themselves offer zero or near zero security or authentication or privacy.
I delved into a lot of this because we did a survey in hospitals. There was no PHI on it, but it was on an iPad. In researching, I got to learn a lot of about device security in healthcare environments.
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@Dashrender said:
Three technologies I'd love to see die:
PSTN
SMS/MMS
emailThese technologies by themselves offer zero or near zero security or authentication or privacy.
At least in their current form.
We use e-mail, but only to attach a link to a file stored on a secure service like ShareFile for Healthcare.
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@Dashrender said:
Yes sure roles - of course, but in every situation I've seen, the roles of those who 'need' access to patient data, allow full unfettered access to every patient the hospital has on their system (with rare exception - I've seen some systems have a VIP tag for celebrities. this tag would prevent anyone but senior people to have access to those few records, but, the general public... the staff have full access.)
This is actually a bit of the opposite of the way we delegate access. For example higher ups such as Directors, C level Management, Board etc. Do not have access to modify financial data, some don't even have access to view. There is a lot of separation of roles.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
Three technologies I'd love to see die:
PSTN
SMS/MMS
emailThese technologies by themselves offer zero or near zero security or authentication or privacy.
At least in their current form.
We use e-mail, but only to attach a link to a file stored on a secure service like ShareFile for Healthcare.
Sure, but you could just as easily use any number of IM clients that can provide end to end encryption (yeah I know email can - but you as the user don't know that it does or not).
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@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Yes sure roles - of course, but in every situation I've seen, the roles of those who 'need' access to patient data, allow full unfettered access to every patient the hospital has on their system (with rare exception - I've seen some systems have a VIP tag for celebrities. this tag would prevent anyone but senior people to have access to those few records, but, the general public... the staff have full access.)
This is actually a bit of the opposite of the way we delegate access. For example higher ups such as Directors, C level Management, Board etc. Do not have access to modify financial data, some don't even have access to view. There is a lot of separation of roles.
That only works because there is never a time that those people require access to those systems to get their job done or save a life. You have a separation of duties that allows for that kind of division. Rarely does healthcare appear to have so easily definable boundaries.
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@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Yes sure roles - of course, but in every situation I've seen, the roles of those who 'need' access to patient data, allow full unfettered access to every patient the hospital has on their system (with rare exception - I've seen some systems have a VIP tag for celebrities. this tag would prevent anyone but senior people to have access to those few records, but, the general public... the staff have full access.)
This is actually a bit of the opposite of the way we delegate access. For example higher ups such as Directors, C level Management, Board etc. Do not have access to modify financial data, some don't even have access to view. There is a lot of separation of roles.
That only works because there is never a time that those people require access to those systems to get their job done or save a life. You have a separation of duties that allows for that kind of division. Rarely does healthcare appear to have so easily definable boundaries.
Not really we have our own Doctors, first responders , Safety team and we even have a community college.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
To drive my point home:
We have fired two people over the last several years because they logged into a health system they were granted access to because our providers work there as well. They illegally gained access to patient data that had no connection to our providers.
Why is this even possible? Obviously it doesn't need to be so.. but it is, everywhere - in every system they have a logon for, they have full or near full unfettered access to all patients in the entire system.
Right. That is something I think would be fixed with @scottalanmiller 's suggestions.
Encryption does nothing for that.
Except for when that same employee who should know better does that on a laptop and it gets stolen. And the the auditors trace that. Uh-oh.
Does strict policy protect from that? That's something that I don't know about. If you have a clear policy that this is not allowed and they choose to take that data out of the allowed systems, can it be on them not on the company? No different than any other kind of theft? I know that you can do that if you move to VDI or terminal servers.
