Brian Mazanec, deputy director for the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response’s Center for Preparedness within the Department of Health and Human Services, said a cybersecurity division within the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection serves as the focal point for ASPR’s cyber work with the healthcare sector, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.
According to Mazanec, the cyber division has employed an “initial tranche” of federal personnel and incident response is one of its core responsibilities.
For instance, the ASPR team will work with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to help respond and provide support in the event of a cyber attack on a major hospital.
“We come in and try to understand, well, what are the patient impacts, what systems are down, what things can we offer to potentially help or be monitoring, to maybe take further actions to again, blunt those patient impacts,” the deputy director said.
Mazanec noted that “communication and education” is another key facet of the cyber division within ASPR, which he said is bolstering its proactive outreach efforts on cyber issues within the health sector.
In December 2023, HHS released a concept paper outlining the planned steps to improve cyber resilience and ensure patient safety as part of its cybersecurity strategy for the healthcare sector.
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