Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:The Culture of Health Care
Unit:Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security
Lecture:Tools for protecting privacy and confidentiality
Slide content:Technologies to Secure Information Deterrents Alerts Audit trails System management precautions Software management Analysis of vulnerability Obstacles Authentication Authorization Integrity management Digital signatures Encryption Firewalls Rights management 11
Slide notes:A variety of technologies can be used to secure information. There are deterrents, which do not exclude people from breaching security but give them pause for doing so, such as putting up alerts when, for example, an employees medical record is about to be accessed. Another deterrent is the audit trail. System management precautions also can be taken. A number of software systems do not protect information as well as they should, and an analysis of vulnerability can reveal such risks. Here are some obstacles that can prevent individuals from getting to private information: Authentication: The user must provide credentials, usually a password, to access a system or file Authorization: The user is given (or denied) permission to specifically access, read, write, edit, create, move, and/or delete files Integrity management: The soundness of the overall system is assessed and maintained Digital signatures: A code is attached to electronically transmitted messages to validate that the sender is who he or she claims to be Encryption: Data is converted into ciphertext by the sender, and it can be read only if the recipient has a key (covered in the next two slides) Firewalls: Software, hardware, or both, designed to keep systems inaccessible from, say, Internet users Rights management: Digital locks are used to protect or restrict the use of proprietary hardware and software and copyrighted materialfor example, a software program may have an embedded tag that allows the program to be installed only a limited number of times 11