CSIRT CAPABILITIES IN HEALTHCARE SECTOR Status and Development

Abstract

In recent years, digitalisation has turned everything into something connected and smarter. How ever, w hile creating numerous opportunities for the European economy and society, technologies bring forw ard several new challenges. According to a recent study 1, cyber threats increase year over year, as the popularity of emerging technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, the large use of cloud computing, as w ell as connected devices, provide copious w ays to invade an organisation. An attack directed at a critical infrastructure, such as a hospital, can lead to physical damages and put the lives of patients at risk2. Therefore, there is a need for solid Incident Response Capabilities (IRC) in the health sector, in particular health care settings (including hospitals and private clinics). This sector indeed faces threats along its entire supply chain w ith potentially disastrous societal consequences for a multiplicity of stakeholders (citizens, public authorities, regulators, professional associations, large industries, SMEs), w hich become even more vulnerable in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. This report focuses on sectoral CSIRT capabilities status and development w ithin the health sector since the implementation of the NIS Directive. The aim of the report is to offer insights on current incident response (IR) trends in order to draw practical recommendations about the development of IR capabilities in the health sector.