DkIT conference explores strengthening cyber resilience across the Irish health ecosystem
Over 120 healthcare leaders, IT professionals, innovators, and policy experts recently gathered at Dundalk Institute of Technology (DKIT) for the ‘Cyber Security for Healthcare’ Conference.
Supported by InterTradeIreland and ARMIS, and delivered in collaboration with Cyber Ireland, NI Cyber, and Health Innovation Research Alliance Northern Ireland (HIRANI), the conference focused on urgent cybersecurity threats in healthcare, regulatory readiness, third-party risks, and medical device security.
The conference was officially opened by Breanndán Casey, Education & Outreach Manager (Cluster Manager) of the Connected Health & Wellbeing Cluster at DkIT, who welcomed attendees and introduced the conference in the context of DKIT’s strengths in EU research, digital health innovation, and industry collaboration. Breanndán highlighted the success of Cluster initiatives like eHealth Embark, AI in healthcare programmes, and the growing role of the CHW Cluster and dConnect, in building an all-island innovation ecosystem. He also announced the establishment of a new Working Group in partnership with the Cyber Ireland Cluster.
Speaking about this new partnership, Breanndán said:
“This new group will focus on synergies across the cybersecurity and health sectors, and prioritise shared learning and innovation. The health sector has the highest rate of cyber-attacks, and it is imperative that industry and healthcare providers have access to relevant expertise and support.”
The keynote address by Don Edwards, Principal Security Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) explored the evolving landscape of healthcare cyber threats, sharing real-world examples of cloud vulnerabilities and response strategies. He reinforced the importance of the shared responsibility model, where cloud providers and healthcare organisations must work together to secure infrastructure, identity, and data.
Some other talks throughout the day included; ‘Regulation and Risk Readiness’ delivered by Kim Moylan from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and ‘Building Resilient Health Systems’ by Neal Mullen, Chief Information Security Officer, HSE.
Juuso Järviniemi, from the European Commission presented the new European Action Plan to Strengthen the Cybersecurity of Hospitals and Anita Finnegan from Dundalk-based cybersecurity risk management solution company Nova Leah, gave a live demo of the company’s award-winning cybersecurity risk management platform designed specifically for healthcare providers.
To finish off an insightful day, Thomas Coleman from Zendra Health facilitated a panel including Ken Sheehan, Smarttech247; Anita Finnegan, Nova Leah and Hugh McGauran, ARMIS on the topic ‘Medical Device Security & The Road Ahead’. The panel explored critical vulnerabilities in connected medical devices, the need for supply chain visibility in medtech and healthtech, how AI and upskilling are reshaping cyber defence and calls to expand regulatory sandboxes to safely test digital health innovations.