Cybersecurity in healthcare is not an academic topic, but a matter of hospital operations and patient health. The talk revealed why Slovakia is lagging behind, how easily weak infrastructure can be exploited, and what we can do about it. We summarized the main findings and practical steps.
When an attack shuts down a hospital
The speaker recalled a case in Europe where an attack knocked out a hospital as a whole – from staff access to infusion pumps – directly affecting patients. With serious consequences, a cyberattack can turn into a criminal matter if life is endangered or a death occurs. A case was also mentioned of a clinic with approximately two thousand patients that was brought down by a trivial attack and ended with a ransom payment in cryptocurrency. Such incidents show that the problem does not concern only large hospitals, but also smaller providers, who often have neither a dedicated budget nor specialists.
How to improve: steps and trends
The foundation is an honest analysis of the current state: map systems, access rights, dependencies, and build on that a short-term plan of quick measures. This should be followed by medium- and long-term steps that address modernization, training, and operational processes, not just technology procurement. The key minimum includes backups and their regular testing, multi-factor authentication, stricter management of administrative privileges, and network segmentation. Regular validation of resilience is also important – not just an audit, but targeted testing and subsequent remediation.
A trend is moving parts of the infrastructure to the cloud, where security can be scaled and better supervised, while maintaining GDPR compliance and data residency in the EU (for example Frankfurt, Amsterdam, or Dublin). Modern tools with elements of artificial intelligence can detect suspicious behavior, stop malicious activity, and prevent data encryption, but they require oversight and established processes. The private sector often advances faster, but public healthcare also needs targeted funding and support schemes for outpatient clinics, which tend to be the weakest link. And finally, without regular user education, even the best technologies will remain underused.
