Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Feb 25, 2021)
Date Submitted: Jan 15, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 19, 2018 - Mar 16, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
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Understanding Cyber Time
Background:
There is an old expression in agriculture that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time, is today. This is exactly where we find ourselves today with healthcare cyber security. The systems we use simply were not designed or built, nor are they currently managed, for the types of advanced persistent threats that face us. There are many ways that cyber security and cyber resilience can be approached and optimized but the most significant factor is time. The majority of systems supporting critical healthcare missions were developed over the course of years, or even decades. Major revisions and new features are developed over the course of months and years. Fixes and updates are typically delivered monthly or as daily emergency releases. System operators extend the time to achieve these system improvements with testing and validation of systems, updates, and patches to ensure functionality and that no unintended consequences are being introduced. This extended lifecycle leaves critical missions lacking functionality and exposed to cyber risks on a continual basis. It is impossible for most organizations to stay up to speed with cyber defense.
Objective:
To relay the importance of building cyber strategies that understand and optimize the essential nature of cyber time.
Methods:
NA. Viewpoint piece
Results:
NA - viewpoint Piece
Conclusions:
Cybersecurity varies greatly from most domains of risk management in that there is always a determined adversary actively executing an agenda that inevitably brings harm to targeted organizations. This adversary is moving at unprecedented speed and organizations must build and execute strategies that enable response and resiliency in real-time to meet this unprecedented level of persistent threat.
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