During the early phase of the Corona pandemic public health actors rapidly deployed contact tracing applications for mobile phones. The apps aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, by aiding manual contact tracing. In Samuel Wairimu’s research in Computer Science he investigates the security and privacy risks of these apps and how patients can be harmed by those risks.
In his licentiate thesis, Samuel has used an experimental approach to assess the risks and combined it with a theoretical approach which goes on to assess what impacts and consequences a state-sponsored cyberattack could have to the healthcare sector, and to patients especially.
In our conversation, Samuel explains the results of his study and he argues that more emphasis needs to be put on information security in the healthcare sector, as it is prone for experiencing cyberattacks and the risks for patients can be severe.
Samuel Wairimu’s licentiate thesis can be downloaded from DiVA: Privacy and Security Analysis : Assessing Risks and Harm to Patients
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