May 22, 2024 at 09:57AM
The US government’s ARPA-H announced a $50 million cybersecurity effort, UPGRADE, to secure hospital IT systems. The program aims to identify vulnerabilities and automatically procure, test, and deploy patches. Collaboration between IT staff, medical device makers, healthcare providers, and cybersecurity experts is crucial for creating a software suite tailored for hospital cyber-resilience. Multiple grants will be awarded.
Based on the meeting notes, the key points are:
1. The US government’s ARPA-H has announced a $50 million cybersecurity effort, called UPGRADE, aimed at securing hospital environments against cyberattacks due to the large number of internet-connected devices in health facilities.
2. UPGRADE will focus on proactively identifying vulnerabilities, developing patches, and creating a software suite tailored for hospital cyber-resilience, with the program manager Andrew Carney highlighting the challenges in modeling the complexities of software systems used in healthcare facilities.
3. The program will request proposals on building a vulnerability mitigation platform, developing high-fidelity digital twins of hospital equipment, vulnerability autodetection, and auto-development of custom defenses, with ARPA-H expecting to award multiple grants as part of the program.
4. HHS Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm emphasized that UPGRADE will help build on HHS’ Healthcare Sector Cybersecurity Strategy to ensure all hospital systems can operate securely.
Let me know if you need further information or assistance with anything else.