Abstract
The cyberspace depicts an increasing number of difficulties related to security, especially in healthcare. This is evident from how vulnerable critical infrastructures are to cyberattacks and are unprotected against cybercrime. Users, ideally, should maintain a good level of cyber hygiene, via regular software updates and the development of unique passwords, as an effective way to become resilient to cyberattacks. Cyber security breaches are a top priority, and most users are aware that their behaviours may put them at risk; however, they are not educated to follow best practices, such as protecting their passwords. Mass cyber education may serve as a means to offset poor cyber security behaviours; however, mandatory education becomes a questionable point if the content is not focused on human factors, using human-centric approaches and taking into account end users’ behaviours, which is currently the case. The nature of the present paper is largely exploratory, and the purpose is two-fold: To present and explore the cyber hygiene definition, context and habits of end users in order to strengthen our understanding of users. Our paper reports the best practices that should be used by healthcare organisations and healthcare professionals to maintain good cyber hygiene and how these can be applied via a healthcare use case scenario to increase awareness related to data privacy and cybersecurity. This is an issue of great importance and urgency considering the rapid increase of cyberattacks in healthcare organisations, mainly due to human errors. Further to that, based on human-centric approaches, our long-term vision and future work involves facilitating the development of efficient practices and education associated with cybersecurity hygiene via a flexible, adaptable and practical framework.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 3410 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Applied Sciences |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 7 Mar 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The research conducted in this paper was funded by the project ‘A Dynamic and Self-Organized Artificial Swarm Intelligence Solution for Security and Privacy Threats in Healthcare ICT Infrastructures’ (AI4HEALTHSEC) under grant agreement No. 883273. The project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
Funding Information:
The authors are grateful for the financial support of this project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The views expressed in this paper represent only the views of the authors and not of the European Commission or the partners in the above-mentioned project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.
Keywords
- cyber hygiene
- cyberattacks
- healthcare
- human factors