Securing Virtual Events for Healthcare Organizations: Best Practices and Emerging Tech 

Healthcare organizations are more digital than ever. From electronic health records (EHRs) to virtual patient visits to remote patient monitoring, healthcare providers are increasingly adopting digital technologies to improve patient care, streamline operations and enhance overall efficiency. Along with this digital transformation, the healthcare sector is also embracing virtual event platforms for conferences, investor updates, continuing medical education (CME), and more.

While these platforms provide the benefits of increasing the accessibility, cost effectiveness and flexibility of meetings and events, unsecure platforms can also introduce cyber risks.

That’s especially concerning for a sector that is persistently in the crosshairs of cybercriminals seeking to exploit valuable patient information and data. A 2024 Ponemon Healthcare Cybersecurity Report for Proofpoint found that 92% of the healthcare organizations surveyed experienced a cyberattack in the past 12 months—up from 88% in 2023. The cost of the single most expensive attack topped $4.7 million.

As healthcare organizations increasingly leverage virtual meetings and events, safeguarding them from cyber risks and ensuring compliance is critical.

Virtual event cyber risks

One of the most common concerns for virtual event planners is the potential for unauthorized access. Lack of secure authentication puts healthcare virtual events at risk of unauthorized entry or impersonation of event attendees. This can lead to bad actors gaining access to confidential information, disrupting the broadcast, or even injecting malicious content.

The use of generic video conferencing tools that lack healthcare-specific compliance features and robust real-time monitoring and auditing capabilities can also introduce security, privacy and compliance risks for healthcare organizations.

Best practices for secure virtual events

For the secure and seamless delivery of events, healthcare event planners should start by selecting a secure virtual event platform purpose-built for highly regulated industries like healthcare. That means a platform that supports enterprise-grade encryption, IP blocking, password protection, and attendee authentication. It also means a platform that adheres to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy and security requirements.

Selecting the right software for large-scale or confidential events is another critical best practice. While video meeting tools work well for small, collaborative discussions, they expose larger events to security risks due to their lack of security features such as advanced access controls, audience engagement controls, and real-time monitoring.

• Access controls, including event password protection, whitelist domains, tokenized links, or invitation-only registration, ensure only pre-approved users can join event rooms. Event planners can also restrict event access to users from specific websites, such as a corporate intranet.
• Audience engagement controls restrict screen-sharing capabilities and presentation materials to authorized event hosts. These controls also allow live Q&A sessions to be monitored, with questions visible to attendees only after they’ve been answered. Some platforms include a backstage control feature that can be used for live virtual events to vet guest speakers before giving them access to the main stage.
• Real-time monitoring functions allow staff or a virtual event producer to immediately detect and address suspicious activity.

Best practices for virtual event security should also include anticipating threats and establishing contingency plans for responding quickly and effectively to a security breach.

The Role of AI 

As new cybersecurity threats continue to emerge, healthcare organizations must reassess their virtual event technologies to ensure these tools meet industry and organizational security and compliance requirements.

Digital event technology is evolving to keep virtual meetings and events secure in the face of new cyber threats. AI-based tools are being integrated into this technology to improve event monitoring and speaker identification. Advanced AI-powered analytics offer insights into virtual event performance by tracking audience engagement, all while maintaining compliance and safeguarding personally identifiable information (PII). Artificial intelligence further strengthens virtual event security by flagging anomalies such as unauthorized logins from suspicious IPs or devices.

The healthcare sector’s rapid embrace of digital technologies, including virtual event platforms, presents both immense opportunities and significant cybersecurity challenges. To safeguard sensitive data and patient information from persistent cyber threats, healthcare organizations should select virtual event technology purpose-built for security and compliance and continually reassess their tech stack as cyber threats evolve.