Intersections of Telemedicine / Telehealth and Cybersecurity: The Age of Resilience and COVID-19

Abstract

Abstract The telemedicine and telehealth industry regenerates to fast-track the COVID-19 pandemic. Preliminary 2020 data suggests a 2,532 % surge in healthcare aid provided equated to the 2019 March through June timeframe. While telemedicine technology offers a variety of benefits, it is vulnerable to cyber threats. Countrywide stay-put mandates swiftly intensified telemedicine/telehealth from an auspicious novelty to becoming fundamental precedence. The industry is consistently besieged by a deluge of convalescents, restrained supplies, allotting, and additional encounters because of COVID-19. Cybersecurity leaders and healthcare establishments had to promptly change their IT resources, timetables, and work ranges to leverage prevailing technologies and propel healthcare providers and convalescents, adapted to the novel healthcare delivery services and enhanced changes. Telehealth, an integral part of delivering convalescent care, has multiplied healthcare offerorsʼ digital traces and cybersecurity hacks, as evidenced through endpoint security and the amplification of conclusions per telemedicine/telehealth sphere. COVID-19 reveals the junctions of cybersecurity and telehealth as a worst-case scenario for modernistic interpretations regarding healthcares’ cybersecurity guidance. The findings of this research provides awareness to understand if leaders at all levels aid in preventing cyber-attacks, thwarting ransom attacks, and indicating that healthcare organizations must adopt a cyber resilience plan.