Quantum computing promises to transform the healthcare industry having a dramatic impact on how we approach drug discovery, diagnosis, personalized medicine, and more. But with such promise also comes much peril – especially for a highly regulated industry that has been traditionally slow to adopt new technologies.
This blog post will highlight the potential applications of quantum computing in healthcare as well as the data security and privacy considerations healthcare IT leaders must address now to ensure the humanity-boosting breakthroughs of quantum computing are realized – safely and securely.
Quantum Computing Applications for Healthcare
The power of a quantum computer will transform how we approach complex medical challenges. Its immense processing power will enable the healthcare sector to see unprecedented advancements in treatment, diagnosis, and patient care.
Here are four key areas where quantum computing could dramatically impact healthcare and the future of medicine.
- Drug Discovery and Development: Quantum computing can simulate molecular interactions with incredible precision. This capability speeds up drug discovery by identifying promising compounds faster and predicting their efficacy. Companies like IBM and Google are already investing in quantum-powered drug research to accelerate finding cures for complex diseases.
- Personalized Medicine: Quantum algorithms can analyze vast amounts of genetic and clinical data, helping develop personalized treatment plans tailored to an individual’s genetic makeup. This advancement could lead to more precise therapies and significantly reduce trial-and-error in prescribing treatments.
- Medical Imaging and Diagnostics: Quantum-enhanced machine learning can improve the accuracy of image analysis, such as MRI or CT scans, detecting abnormalities with higher precision. Early diagnosis of conditions like cancer could become more accurate, leading to better patient outcomes.
- Epidemiological Modeling: Quantum computers can model the spread of diseases more accurately by analyzing complex variables, helping public health officials make data-driven decisions.
Preparing for the Quantum Age with Privacy and Security Top of Mind
Healthcare, like all industries, must start to prepare for the day when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) powerful enough to break or weaken today’s encryption standards is available (aka Q-Day). The high value of patient data and medical research makes healthcare organizations a prime target for cyberattacks. Cybersecurity leaders inside hospitals and healthcare delivery organizations must acknowledge the risks posed by enterprise encryption weaknesses in the near and long term.
As imaging systems, patient devices, health information systems, and more share data and are used in day-to-day diagnoses and treatment – now deemed the Internet of Medical Things – the risk of a compromise could threaten the quality of patient care. A recent report by Team82 found nearly 90% of healthcare organizations are running medical systems vulnerable to publicly available exploits.
Quantum Xchange’s own research found that the healthcare industry lags when it comes to cybersecurity hygiene with a reluctance to update “working” systems that are in production. Examining more than 203 terabytes of network traffic, our analysis looked at the relationships, sessions, and traffic for ciphersuites, plaintext, TLS 1.3, TLS 1.2, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.0, and SSL v3 used on customer networks.
The results showed up to 80 percent of network traffic had some defeatable flaw in its encryption and 61 percent of the traffic was unencrypted. Healthcare was slow to change with a significant presence of TLS 1.1 and 1.0 in use. More alarming still, up to 92 percent of all traffic on a hospital network uses no encryption at all. See infographic for full results.
It is well documented that between the HITECH Act and procedural HIPAA steps, the data compliance rules and regulations for the healthcare industry are massive barriers to new technology adoption. For this reason, the healthcare industry more than any other, should be taking urgent steps to protect their data and communications networks from Q-Day, executing against a road map for mitigating and remediating the most at-risk medical systems and networks. Immediate steps include:
- Discover, catalog, and prioritize cryptographic risk based on the zero-trust framework.
- Enforce policies and manage organizational progress toward crypto-agility
- Be prepared for the next phase of computing with a quantum crypto-agility platform like Phio TX.
Contact Quantum Xchange to learn how to continuously monitor and manage cryptography risk in the enterprise, meet regulatory compliance requirements, deploy NIST-standard PQCs with ease and agility, and execute security policy to stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape.
