What if Hospitals Could Automatically Protect Patients from Cyber Threats?

A software update was missed for the program running your local hospital’s X-ray machines. A hacker now controls all the machines and is demanding $500,000 in cryptocurrency be sent to an anonymous wallet; otherwise, he will shut down the entire radiology department.

This scenario becomes more likely for hospitals of all sizes as medical technology advances, adding more devices to constantly growing networks.

With the help of a contract award for up to $12 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) UPGRADE program, a team of researchers led by the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech will begin developing an advanced cybersecurity platform to help hospitals proactively identify and fix vulnerabilities in their software, devices, and networks.

“This is a new area of security research,” said Associate Professor Brendan Saltaformaggio. “We not only have to worry about the cybersecurity aspect, but the physical security as well. Our research must be very accurate to make sure patients are safe from cyberthreats.”