Cloud security roadmap essential for healthcare as off-site threats persist

The onset of cloud computing brought with it an information technology revolution, allowing organizations to have their IT resources hosted off site, reducing their costs and simplifying operations. Unfortunately, the move to the cloud did not mean organizations could forget about requirements for a successful security profile.

Healthcare organizations making the move to a cloud-centric strategy can’t lower their guard on security defenses, said Chris Bowen, founder and chief privacy and security officer of ClearDATA, a healthcare cloud computing company.

“People may think that by offloading security responsibility to the cloud, they won’t have to worry, but that’s not the case,” Bowen said. “We know that threats exist in the cloud.”

Bowen will discuss this issue at HIMSS16 along with J. Gary Seay, senior vice president and CIO of Community Health Systems, Bowen will give a presentation entitled, “Developing a Cloud Security Roadmap.”

Bowen and Seay will look at the specific security problems facing healthcare organizations, which often rank behind retail and financial organizations in creating hardened, multi-layered approaches. The session will show how to develop a cloud security roadmap that can eliminate the main causes of data breaches using a “Defense in Depth” multi-layered approach to security.

The discussion will also look at how a provider enterprise can develop a defense strategy that hardens security at seven distinct layers: physical; network; application; server; data; devices; and users. If done right, cloud technology enables organizations to take advantage of many layers of security, which may range from data encryption to threat management, and drive accelerated compliance, cost savings and data analytics for healthcare organizations.

Healthcare CIOs evaluating cloud providers as partners have to make sure that their security expertise is airtight, Bowen said.

“Just because a cloud provider has a great set of building blocks doesn’t mean they have great solutions,” he said. “Your building blocks will fall if they are not in the right place.”

The session will take place on Wednesday, March 2 at 10:00 a.m. in the Sands Convention Center, Palazzo E Ballroom.