Systal Chief Information Security Officer Deryck Mitchelson recently joined BBC South East to discuss the increasing cyber security challenges facing the healthcare sector.
During the interview, Deryck highlighted the complexity of today’s healthcare digital landscape. Modern healthcare environments consist of interconnected clinical systems, medical devices, legacy infrastructure, and national data platforms. Whilst these technologies deliver significant benefits for patient care, they also create an extensive attack surface for cyber criminals.
Healthcare data remains one of the most valuable data types traded on the dark web. The aggregation of sensitive patient information within large-scale national electronic health record systems presents a particularly attractive target for ransomware groups. A successful cyber attack in this environment can have serious operational consequences, potentially impacting clinical services and patient care.
Deryck emphasised that strengthening cyber resilience across NHS trusts requires a consistent focus on several core security practices.
For healthcare organisations, key priorities should include:
- Strong vulnerability management and timely patching of systems
- Implementing multi-factor authentication across all critical services
- Network segmentation between IT environments and clinical or medical device networks
- Regular incident response exercises to ensure teams are prepared for cyber events
Deryck also highlighted that cyber resilience is a shared responsibility. Patients and citizens play an important role in protecting their personal digital identities.
Individuals should:
- Use strong, unique passwords and avoid password reuse across different websites and services
- Adopt password managers or passkeys to securely manage credentials
- Enable two-factor authentication on email, social media, and other important online accounts
By strengthening both organisational defences and individual cyber hygiene, the healthcare ecosystem can become significantly more resilient to modern cyber threats.
Tune in at 8:00am to hear the full interview here
