From the rapid adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), to the expansion of telehealth and digital technologies that track health habits, the healthcare industry has been on its way to IT modernization for some time now. Despite efforts to create efficiencies in order to enhance the patient experience, challenges remain. Information security is one of the biggest factors to consider when it comes to IT modernization as meeting today’s standards when it comes to security is becoming increasingly difficult.

In a recent video series about prioritizing IT modernization and mitigating the impact of legacy IT on the process, Senior Director of Product Management at SolarWinds Mav shares tips and insights for IT leaders about the most sensible approaches to tackling IT modernization.

In part three of his video series, Mav explores how legacy IT systems can affect information security and what precautions should IT leaders take to keep those risks under control.

This is particularly important as, depending on the age of the system in use, most of them cannot be properly secured or don’t support modern sign-on interfaces compared to newer technologies in use today. Mav notes, “Often these encryption algorithms and the standards that are used [in legacy systems] don’t meet today’s standards.” In fact, many are still operating unencrypted.

In addition to the obvious security vulnerabilities that come with weak or no encryption, older systems operating on outdated operating systems (OS) can be impossible to patch or update. Depending on the age of the OS that’s in use, the vendor may no longer be updating the product and that’s where the crux of the vulnerabilities lie. Even if new applications or programs running on the OS can be updated, the OS itself might not be, increasing chances for cyber threats.

Mav also suggests that IT leaders consider system access points, as older systems don’t often minimize the number of ports being accessed or properly segment out access. This leads to increased vulnerability in underlying systems and an increased attack surface for hackers.

Watch the full video below to learn from Mav about information security considerations and vulnerabilities that come with legacy systems and threats of which IT decision makers should be aware.