Abu Dhabi, UAE — Abu Dhabi’s Department of Health, the regulator of the healthcare sector in the emirate on Friday identified different risk scenarios and helped prepare healthcare entities in Abu Dhabi for cyber threats during the Healthcare Protective Shield Wargaming Conference. The department evaluated the effectiveness of entities’ incident response and communication plan with the help of simulated cyber incident response scenarios.
Hosted recently in Abu Dhabi as the first of its kind in the region, the conference was organised in collaboration with the Cyber Security Council with the participation of 10 biggest healthcare groups of Abu Dhabi, representing more than 370 entities.
The Cyber wargaming conference focused on assessing the sector’s preparedness to handle cyber challenges and pinpoint recommendations and best practices, ensuring the readiness of the sector and continuity of care.
The event saw DoH showcasing its efforts in the digitisation of healthcare services and emphasising the importance of having high levels of data protection to protect all the patients’ data and sensitive information. It covered a simulation of the Department’s Medical Operations Command (MOC) “Information Sharing” and “Patient Transfer Module” in the Estijabah Platform. The module is used for patient evacuation from one healthcare facility to another in order to ensure an uninterrupted continuity of care delivery to patients.
“We are continuously working on developing the healthcare ecosystem in the emirate for it to become among the leading and innovative systems in the world through digital services, aimed to improve the quality of healthcare for the residents of Abu Dhabi and the region,” Dr. Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health, Abu Dhabi (DoH) said. . “Accordingly, we understand the advances in technology entail that we provide the highest levels of protection to patients’ privacy. Today’s event creates an opportunity to explore and discuss all possible solutions to combat cyber incidents in accordance with international standards and best practices as we continue with our efforts to harness digital health technologies to improve patients’ experience and deliver world-class healthcare,” he continued.
Dr. Mohamed Hamad Al-Kuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security for the UAE Government noted that the Cyber Security Council is building a safe and resilient infrastructure for cyber security in the UAE, and promoting the culture of cyber security among institutions and individuals.
The healthcare sector is a frequent target for cyber-attacks due to the sensitivity of information, which are often sold and used in identity theft.
Earlier in November, India’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was affected by the recent cyberattack and an estimated 1.3 terabytes of data was encrypted.
The investigations into the cyberattack, which had crippled the functioning of the premier health institution in New Delhi, revealed that “the IP addresses of two emails, which were identified from the headers of files that were encrypted by the hackers, originated from Hong Kong and China’s Henan province”.