Information Security in a World of Technology Essay

Information Security in a World of Technology Essay

Information Security in a World of Technology Essay

Introduction

            All organizations, including health institutions, are responsible for managing records for the public. Health organizations handle a variety of information for patients. They have the mandate to keep information private while avoiding any data breach. However, the management of these data requires adequate responsibility and performance for each department. This report discusses the roles of protecting patient information through security mechanisms, administrative and personnel mechanisms, level of access, and healing and disposal of confidential data. Besides, the report outlines the education approaches concerning phishing and spam emails.

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Security Mechanisms

            Health stakeholders protect patient information through security mechanisms focus on the management of security systems. The first approach is through file encryption. Encrypting the whole system and patient files ensure that patients’ records remain safe within the systems (Cucoranu, et al., 2013). The health providers make the patient records inaccessible to third party, including unauthorized employees. Besides, data encryption is useful in preventing attackers from deciphering patient information even if they access the data. Attackers can coordinate with unauthorized employees to receive specific information about the department or healthcare before conducting an actual attack. Thus, data and system encryption would be necessary to reduce chances of compromise.

            The second approach is the use of firewalls. Firewalls are necessary for protecting the systems and data from external access (Iqbal et al., 2022). The systems should include three-level protection, where the system administrator is informed about breaches before the attacker gets the data. A significant role of a firewall is to help protect the system, computers, and data through controlling the network traffic. They block unwanted or unsolicited incoming network traffic and also alert the system administrator about the breach. Firewalls can protect the computer against phishing since it will detect the phishing emails and warn the employees about it.

Administrative and Personnel Issues

            Administrative staff and other personnel are responsible for improving patient privacy. The first aspect is that they should place put stable passwords on their work computers (Moore & Frye, 2019). They should mainly put passwords in their machines to prevent third-party access. The passwords should be encrypted in specific type of data. For instance, any health record that the patient considers private should be password-protected. Besides, health workers should not share the passwords with other workers unless they have the authorization to do so. Through constant monitoring of the data, administrators can avoid any damages caused by careless data loss.

            The second approach is that all staff should not transfer patients’ health records to their personal devices, including mobile phones or personal computers. This aspect should be maintained by the personnel to avoid any vulnerability. Copying data to personal computers is one of the major challenges that affect many health stakeholders, since other people can access it. If the health workers transfer patient data while working, they should delete it before leaving the office. This rule or approach is useful since it curbs the concerns of being compromised. In some instances, workers wrongly dispose of their laptops or they are stolen. When they leave data in their laptops or USB disks, third parties may access the health records. Thus, administrators should maintain the rule of not transferring data to personal computer.

Level of Access

            Level of access can be achieved by putting various layers of security to the system. For instance, data can be designed into public, private, and protected. The division of data into these categories is necessary for the system to help in protecting data according to their levels of privacy. The private data can then be encrypted to allow only the authorized individuals to access it. Protected data is also encrypted, although only system administrators can gain access to them. The public data is free for any authorized nurse and also be given to other workers if need arises. While the information can be public, it still needs protection from workers. They should maintain the ethics of proper data storage and retrieval.

Handling and Disposal of Confidential Information

            Handling and disposal of confidential information is also critical for health organizations. The best approach to managing data disposal or handling is to follow strict guidelines for these actions (Liu, Musen, & Chou, 2015). For instance, when disposing patients’ records, authorized practitioners must follow due process to avoid wrong disposal. Nurses and health administrators must conduct checks before releasing their computers for sale. They should delete all the files and backups within the PCs and also format the USB storage disks. They should also logout of browsers and delete all history. These measures are necessary to avoid unauthorized access to patients’ files through emails.

Educating Staff

            The most significant training method for medical staff is instructor-led training. This type of training involves direct one-on-one education done between an instructor and the workers. This approach is necessary since the instructor can provide information and answer staff questions about security vulnerability. For instance, during the training, the trainer will guide the trainees on how phishing emails work and how to avoid them. The training will be practical as possible, to enable them differentiate between authorized and phished email addresses. Besides, the training will be essential to identify compromised conditions. They should learn the necessary steps when they realized unauthorized access to patients’ records. This approach would enable them to be calm and handle the situation without panicking.

            The second training method involves coaching and mentoring. This strategy is necessary for specific types of workers, including members handling health records. Coaching involves conducting an assessment of the staff knowledge about hacking, phishing, and other forms of data vulnerability. The assessment will guide the coach on how to train them about the arising problems on this issue. They can be updated about their role in avoiding hacking or phishing and how they can improve the security by reporting any suspicious activity in their computers. The main advantage of this approach is to gain knowledge on how to handle these issues through hands-on approach.

Conclusion

            Protecting patients’ information is a priority for all health organizations. Administrators and personnel are involved in protecting data through passwords and encryption. The security systems also use encryption, although they combine it with firewalls to block any unwanted traffic. Meanwhile, institutions should design the data into private, public, and protected to increase the protection through the level of access. During handling and disposal of data, administrators and health workers should follow strict protocols. Disposal requires guidelines on deleting the files and formatting disks to wipe everything. In training the workers, the best approaches including instructor-led training and coaching.

References

Cucoranu, I. C., Parwani, A. V., West, A. J., Romero-Lauro, G., Nauman, K., Carter, A. B., … & Pantanowitz, L. (2013). Privacy and security of patient data in the pathology laboratory. Journal of pathology informatics, 4(1), 4.

Iqbal, J., Adnan, M., Khan, Y., AlSalman, H., Hussain, S., Ullah, S. S., & Gumaei, A. (2022). Designing a healthcare-enabled software-defined wireless body area network architecture for secure medical data and efficient diagnosis. Journal of Healthcare Engineering, 2022.

Liu, V., Musen, M. A., & Chou, T. (2015). Data breaches of protected health information in the United States. Jama, 313(14), 1471-1473.

Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, part 1: history, protected health information, and privacy and security rules. Journal of nuclear medicine technology, 47(4), 269-272.

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Information Security in a World of Technology

Write an essay addressing each of the following points/questions. Be sure to completely answer all the questions for each bullet point. There should be three sections, one for each item number below, as well the introduction (heading is the title of the essay) and conclusion paragraphs. Separate each section in your paper with a clear heading that allows your professor to know which bullet you are addressing in that section of your paper. Support your ideas with at least three (3) scholarly citations using APA citations in your essay. Make sure to reference the citations using the APA writing style for the essay. The cover page and reference page do not count towards the minimum word amount. Review the rubric criteria for this assignment.

The textbook discusses several education methods. Discuss each method with an example of how the method could be used in the organization. Then discuss how you will evaluate the method and learning.

Healthcare continues to be a lucrative target for hackers with weaponized ransomware, misconfigured cloud storage buckets, and phishing emails. Discuss how an organization can protect patients’ information through:

Security mechanisms

Administrative and Personnel Issues

Level of access

Handling and Disposal of Confidential Information

You are providing education to staff on phishing and spam emails. Using the different educational methods discussed in Chapter 12:

Provide examples of how each method can be used

How will the method and learning be evaluated?