Electrosoft led the Healthcare Security Discussion Forum at the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) AppSecUSA Conference held in New York City on November 20, 2013.  This forum provided security application developers an opportunity to discuss and share their perspectives on a vital industry sector where their work is gaining traction.  Electrosoft’s Dr. Judy Fincher led the forum proceedings which resulted in a dynamic speaker-audience interaction and engaged in an open discussion of activities underway to adopt secure applications (apps) and mobility in the Healthcare Sector. The forum discussed trends, issues, and other topics of interest, pointing out that there are over 31,000 mobile healthcare apps.

Other topics included standards development and adoption programs and the guidance provided by:

• Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology (HIT),
• Healthcare Committee of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC),
• Health Level Seven (HL7), and
• U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), such as Special Publication 800-53 Rev. 4, "Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations."

Dr. Fincher received a note of appreciation from the conference organizers. The note stated that “It was such a valuable discussion, and very much appreciated by the OWASP community, and myself, personally, as well.” Dr. Fincher is an invited speaker at two future conferences on related topics, including the World Information Architecture Day event in New York City at NYU, February 14, 2014.

For more information about the OWASP Foundation AppSecUSA 2013 event, please visit their website: http://appsecusa2013.sched.org/

Judith A. Fincher, PhD, is a Senior Security Engineer at Electrosoft Services, Inc.  Dr. Fincher supports security architecture development activities for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) as well as other commercial and Federal clients.