Medicine doctor hand working with modern computer interface as concept
The Kaspersky’s new Healthcare 2021 report confirm lhuge diffusion of obsolete operating systems among medical devices used by Italian healthcare organizations. The data that emerged from Kaspersky’s investigation are truly worrying as regards the risks associated with security due to the use of obsolete operating systems, now unsupported and characterized by potential vulnerabilities. Only 11% of Italian health organizations use medical devices with updated software.
Data from the Kaspersky Healthcare 2021 report: in Italy, healthcare organizations use obsolete operating systems
Ben 89% of Italian healthcare organizations use medical devices with obsolete operating systems. Yes it is a fact that confirms the backwardness of the entire health system that yes exposes you to enormous cybersecurity risks. The use of obsolete systems, in fact, involves the presence of vulnerabilities that could be exploited by criminals to access data or completely block systems. Vulnerabilities in outdated systems can easily become the initial vector of a large-scale cyber attack. According to the report, the spread of legacy operating systems is linked to compatibility issues, high upgrade costs, or a lack of internal knowledge on how to upgrade.
Kaspersky’s comment
Cesare D’Angelo, General Manager Italy of Kaspersky, comments: “The healthcare sector is evolving towards the adoption of connected devices capable of meeting the demand for greater accessibility to care. This also brings with it some cybersecurity challenges typical of embedded systems. Our report confirms that many organizations still use medical devices running old operating systems and are facing some obstacles that prevent the necessary updates from being performed “