Protect Your Data with DataArk®: A Secure Healthcare Data Archiving Solution

Oct 18, 2024 | Article

Written By: Shawn Fergason, Chief Technology Officer, MediQuant

Healthcare organizations continuously face relentless cyber threats that can lead to data breaches, patient care disruptions, and severe financial losses. According to news reports, as of August 31, 2024, there have been 491 healthcare data breaches of 500 or more records reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

Legacy applications are one of the most significant yet often overlooked cybersecurity vulnerabilities because they create entry points for bad actors. Although the data stored within them is crucial, the applications themselves often become obsolete over time. Consequently, outdated or unsupported software applications remain in use by healthcare organizations, often lacking necessary security updates and putting sensitive patient data at risk.

Common Vulnerabilities in Legacy Apps Mitigated by Healthcare Data Archiving

The following vulnerabilities make legacy applications an easy target for cybercriminals, who exploit the gaps in security to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.

1. Unpatched Security Flaws: Legacy applications often lack the necessary updates or patches that protect them from modern cyber threats. This makes them susceptible to ransomware, malware, and other cyber-attacks. Many organizations are reluctant to update legacy applications, creating a critical vulnerability.

2. Outdated Encryption: Legacy applications often use older encryption methods that are no longer effective against modern cyberattacks. Without the ability to encrypt data securely at rest or in transit, these applications expose healthcare organizations to significant risk.

3. Lack of Vendor Support: Once a system is no longer supported by the vendor, it usually doesn’t receive security updates. This lack of support leaves these applications wide open for exploitation by hackers.

4. Complexity in Data Access: Legacy applications often do not have role-based access controls, leaving organizations with limited ability to restrict who can access what data. This opens the door for unauthorized access, either through external threats or internal mishandling.

5. Non-Compliance with Regulatory and Retention Regulations: The 21st Century Cures Act and other regulations mandate that healthcare organizations ensure data is accessible, secure, and protected. Legacy systems often cannot meet these compliance requirements, putting organizations at risk of regulatory penalties.

Decommissioning Legacy Systems with DataArk to Remove Hidden Cyber Risks

In a recent Becker’s Healthcare virtual panel discussion, Hidden in Plain Sight: Unseen Security Threats That Can Cost Your Organization, Kel Pults, Chief Clinical Officer and Vice President of Government Strategy for MediQuant, explored how decommissioning outdated systems and migrating data to a modern archive not only reduces cybersecurity risks but also helps healthcare organizations stay compliant with evolving regulatory standards.

“When you consolidate all your legacy systems into one archive, you’re shutting down a lot of access points for somebody else on the outside to actually get in. You’re reducing that IT footprint, which then actually reduces the security risks.”

She continued, “Part of your rationalization exercise cannot just be your software. I think you must look at the hardware as well. Is this on a risky server? Is this something that you need to be able to respond on? The last thing you want to do is pay long-term support and keep up software and hardware for outdated systems. You want to get rid of it and put it on something that’s more manageable.”

MediQuant’s anchor platform DataArk®, addresses the critical cybersecurity concerns posed by legacy applications and is designed to ensure that patient data remains accessible, secure, and compliant with HIPAA and other regulations governing healthcare data retention.

Decommissioning legacy applications through DataArk offers several key benefits:

  1. Reduced Attack Surface: Consolidating legacy applications into a single archive drastically reduces the number of entry points for cybercriminals. Every legacy application decommissioned is one less application that can be exploited, creating a smaller attack surface for cyber threats.
  2. Encryption and Role-Based Access Controls: DataArk ensures that all archived data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. This significantly enhances data security compared to legacy applications, which may have outdated or ineffective encryption methods. Additionally, role-based access ensures that only authorized personnel can get to sensitive data, reducing the risk of insider threats.
  3. Audit Trail Tracking to Ensure Compliance: DataArk provides comprehensive HIPAA audit trails that track access to hospital archive data. This feature meets HIPAA and other applicable federal, state, local, and organization-specific regulatory and retention requirements.
  4. Cost-Effective Healthcare Legacy Data Management: Decommissioning legacy applications and migrating data to DataArk allows healthcare organizations to reduce the costs associated with preserving old hardware and software. Maintaining outdated applications can be expensive, especially for organizations with limited budgets. Health data archiving through DataArk allows healthcare organizations to eliminate the costly licensing fees and maintenance costs of maintaining outdated or obsolete legacy applications.
  5. Improved Data Access for Future Secondary Use: Although legacy applications may be obsolete, the data within is still critical for future use cases such as patient care, research, and compliance.

How Health Data Archiving Helps Maintain Compliance with Evolving Federal Regulations

In addition to the security risks posed by legacy applications, healthcare organizations must also consider the regulatory implications. The 21st Century Cures Act and HIPAA mandate strict standards for data security, access, and retention. Failing to comply with these regulations can result in significant penalties and reputational damage.

As Dr. Pults noted, healthcare organizations must ensure that patients can access their entire medical record, including data archived from legacy applications. DataArk supports this requirement by providing secure access to hospital archive data while maintaining strict controls over who can view or modify the information.

Another key consideration is the handling of de-identified data for research purposes. Legacy applications often make it difficult to de-identify data securely, creating potential risks. DataArk allows organizations to manage this process more effectively, moving the de-identified data into cold storage. This keeps the data intact for future purposes such as research or leveraging it to drive innovation, while ensuring that the data remains secure and inaccessible to unauthorized users.

Building a Culture of Cybersecurity Vigilance: The First and Most Effective Line of Defense

Addressing cybersecurity is not just a technical challenge—it’s a cultural one. MediQuant emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of vigilance, where everyone, from employees to vendors, is aware of the potential risks and takes steps to mitigate them. Quarterly and annual security training, regular phishing campaigns, and HITRUST certification are just some of the ways MediQuant fosters this culture.

The same approach can be applied to legacy applications. Decommissioning these applications through healthcare data archiving should be viewed as part of a broader cultural shift toward prioritizing cybersecurity. By consolidating legacy applications, restricting access, and encrypting data, healthcare organizations can reduce their overall risk and foster a culture of security throughout the organization.

Defend Legacy Apps from Cyber Threats with DataArk for Secure Health Data Archiving

Cyber threats in healthcare are a growing concern, and legacy systems represent a significant vulnerability. MediQuant offers comprehensive healthcare data archiving that reduces your risk of potential security threats by decommissioning outdated or obsolete applications. Through our proven healthcare data archiving platform DataArk, we offer enhanced security for your legacy application data through encryption, role-based access controls, and audit trail tracking. In addition to reducing the attack surface, DataArk helps organizations meet regulatory requirements and ensures that hospital archive data remains secure and accessible. By embracing a solution like DataArk, your organization is better positioned to address its immediate cybersecurity challenges and build a lasting culture of vigilance that will help protect you from future threats. As technology continues to evolve, staying ahead of cybercriminals will require ongoing collaboration between healthcare organizations, vendors, and regulatory bodies, all working together to secure the future of patient care.

Looking to Improve the Security of Your Healthcare Data? Contact MediQuant Today.

For a complimentary consultation with a healthcare legacy data management specialist book a free demo of our healthcare data archiving solution DataArk online.

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