How Safe Are Your Medical Records? By Shana Dardan and Eric
Smith IT WAS A RESEARCH PROJECT with a dramatic conclusion. In
the winter of 2007, assisted by two Susquehanna University
students, we decided to test our theory that a determined
individual could walk into a hospital and steal medical
information by simply tapping into the institution’s wireless
network. Within several hours of embarking on this adventure, we
not only had achieved our objective with a hospital that had
agreed to become our research guinea pig, but we also had taken
control of its power grid. The purpose of this experiment was
not to cause anxiety or mischief. Rather, it was to underscore
the vulnerabilities of our nation’s medical records system. In
the process, we also created an experience for two students that
far outstripped anything they could have learned in a classroom
lecture. ONLY A FEW SHORT DECADES the introduction of the
personal computer, we are now fully engaged in the digital era.
Digitized information is ubiquitous a