Security Is More Than Just Checking A Box

Ensuring the security of wirelessly-connected medical devices gets more challenging every day due to the escalating number of security threats and rapidly-changing threat landscape that Wi-Fi-enabled IoT devices face. All IoT devices must be protected against these threats, but the task is much more complex for medical devices because they have a much longer life cycle than most consumer and industrial devices. Medical devices often have a 3-5 year development cycle, followed by a manufacturing period of 15-20 years, followed by an additional 5-10 years of service after the product has ceased production. This means that the life cycle of a connected medical device may be 30 years or more, making it critical that a device is supported with a security strategy that will span multiple generations of security threats.

If engineering teams do not have the right approach to security up front, these devices will require enormously-costly, time-consuming engineering efforts over those 30-year lifespans to address security concerns. That risk begins on the day they are deployed and the risk significantly worsens...