Designing and validating a cost effective safe network: application to a PACS system

Network security has been a major issue long time ago. Confidentiality, integrity and availability of data are the primary concerns of any network administrator. Recently, several attacks have resulted in huge losses of resources and of data availability. For example, in May 2017, medical entities in the United Kingdom have been paralyzed due to WannaCry ransomware world-wide cyber-attack. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to propose a more secured network architecture that will be designed for the case of the PACS - Picture Archiving and Communication System - that is used for storing and transmitting radiography images and reports through the hospital internal network. This paper presents an off-the-shelf solution based on the concept of one-way link data diode and open source softwares to assure safety and security in a cost effective manner. The novelty of this approach is in the design of a data diode that limits the physical connection to two network interfaces, and eliminates the need for a third network connection needed to provide a carrier signal for the transmitter. This system has shown some latency in data transfer but has increased the safety and the security of files transferred between the PACS network and the external network.