Health sector representatives call for cyber standards, liability protection at Senate hearing

Rural and smaller hospitals need mandatory cybersecurity standards, funding, better threat information sharing and liability protection, according to health industry witnesses at a Senate Homeland Security hearing on cyber risks facing the sector.

“The first step is to move from guidance to mandatory standards,” Kate Pierce, senior virtual information security officer at Fortified Health Security, told senators. “When we do that, [small entities] will move to improve their environments. They are [currently] choosing to accept risk because they don’t have...