On the security controls of portable computing devices in healthcare environments

This paper reports on the findings of a study relating to the use of portable computing devices in hospitals. The investigation used as a vehicle a recently purpose developed mobile computing infrastructure, but the findings and conclusions have been generalized and could be applied to most healthcare contexts. The two main factors relating to the higher risk of the introduction of a wireless network infrastructure are the uncontrolled boundaries of the corporate (wireless) network, and the elimination of the physical security assumption concerning the mobile computing devices. The methodology adopted in this paper considers the new risks attributed to the threat vectors capable of exploiting vulnerabilities of a mobile network and proposes policy controls and considerations in order to diversify the risks of these threats being successful.