November 14, 2022 8th Annual Product Cybersecurity Symposium

Hosted by Medtronic

Medtronic hosts 8th annual Product Cybersecurity Symposium

Many people spend all year looking forward to a holiday, birthday, anniversary, or some other kind of celebration. For some folks at Medtronic, our favorite day of the year is our annual Product Cybersecurity Symposium! Last month, we got to spend an entire day digging into all aspects of medical device cybersecurity across four different speaking tracks, bringing together many colleagues from Security, Engineering, Regulatory Affairs, Quality, and other functions looking to learn more about product cybersecurity.

Our Product Cybersecurity Symposium is an opportunity to reflect on all the industry changes we have seen in the past year, share best practices and help make sure that more Medtronic employees are aware of trends so we’re on the leading edge of product cybersecurity.

The Symposium featured a great fireside chat with Chief Quality Officer Noel Colón, CEO Geoff Martha, and Vice President of Product Security Ann Sheldon. They touched on cybersecurity concerns from patients, hospitals, and other stakeholders. Geoff discussed the importance of building good cybersecurity into products to maintain patient and customer trust in the security of our products since medical devices are increasingly being targeted by attacks and ransomware.

The three leaders also discussed two foundational aspects of Medtronic’s product cybersecurity efforts. The first one, made crystal clear from Geoff and Noel, was that collaboration with key stakeholders like, healthcare providers, competitors, regulators, and government agencies, is an essential component of our cybersecurity efforts. That collaboration primarily drives our efforts to develop and manufacture secure products. The second aspect is that customers and patients are at the center of all we do. We work with them to ensure products remain secure and safe throughout their use in care delivery.

US FDA Attended

While there were many moments at the Symposium that embodied an emphasis on external collaboration, the clearest was from Matt Hazelett, a cybersecurity policy analyst for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He presented the FDA’s latest thinking on medical device cybersecurity. The U.S. FDA continues to lead the world in medical device cybersecurity maturity, and Matt’s presentation strongly represented those efforts.

Key takeaways from the Product Cybersecurity Symposium:

It’s clear from our speakers, including the FDA and Medtronic leaders, that we are seeing increased attention on product cybersecurity of our medical devices from regulators, hospitals, and patients. This means that the revised draft FDA cybersecurity guidance will be important to the industry to ensure the continued safety and security of medical devices. In addition, the number of different teams learning about the topic at Medtronic continues to grow and feeds our learning organization strategy.

It was great to meet in person and discuss product cybersecurity issues spanning all of Medtronic! With the state of world, it’s common to have not met colleagues face-to-face that we’ve been working with for several years, remotely. It’s also a great opportunity to meet counterparts from other Medtronic Operating Units that could be facing similar challenges they may have solved. Medtronic is a large corporation with many products being supported by many people. It’s easy to miss what the other OUs have been up until you ask.

The Product Security Office looks forward to hosting the Symposium again next year!