Report: Organ Transplant Data Security Needs Strengthening
The national network for connecting medical centers with donated human organs faces doubts about its ability to secure data amid mounting concerns over its IT infrastructure.
The newest criticism comes from a federal watchdog review of the Health Resources and Services Administration and the nonprofit United Network of Organ Sharing. As of January, nearly 107,000 individuals were candidates on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network waitlist. OPTN is designated by the federal government as a "high-value asset."
UNOS, which manages its network at the administration's behest, lacked system monitoring and only had draft procedures for access controls when federal auditors conducted their review.
The OPTN "is a very 'just in time' system where the time between an organ becoming available and getting it into the right patient can be measured in days or even hours," says Benjamin Denkers, chief innovation officer at consultancy CynergisTek.
"Hackers breaching the system could create any number of disruptions to the system connecting available organs with patients in need."
A statement from an UNOS spokeswoman shared with Information Security Media Group notes that auditors concluded that "OPTN security controls 'protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of transplant data.'"
Publication of the watchdog report comes just days after the Health Resources and Services Administration disclosed an OPTN security compromise and just weeks after a bipartisan Senate report warned that UNOS lacks the know-how to modernize a fragile core IT network
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