ResMed CEO Mick Farrell, chair of AdvaMed’s board, said the group plans to come up with standards around privacy, cybersecurity and interoperability.

BOSTON — Following several high-profile cyberattacks of medical device firms, cybersecurity is top of mind for one of the medtech industry’s prominent lobbying groups.

AdvaMed Chairman Mick Farrell said the lobby is looking to create standards around cybersecurity, privacy, and interoperability at a Monday press event at the MedTech Conference. The CEO compared the effort to coming up with a code of ethics.

“What we want to do is raise the bar of the whole industry throughout cybersecurity,” Farrell said. “Those headline-grabbing episodes send a message that anybody can be impacted at any time.”

This year, Stryker and Boston Scientific faced incidents that disrupted their operations, and other large companies including Intuitive, Medtronic and Abbott also reported cyberattacks. Other, smaller companies that don’t have as much security infrastructure may also be vulnerable, Farrell said, and the trade group sees an opportunity to support them.

Farrell, who is also the CEO of ResMed, a company that makes devices to treat sleep apnea and other sleep conditions, sees value in connected medical devices. The company’s respiratory machines connect to the cloud, which gives patients access to their own data, but it also means the company has to invest in its security infrastructure, Farrell said.

Kirsten Tullia, AdvaMed’s executive director of digital health tech, said the group has been working to develop forums for chief information security officers and other learning opportunities to prevent these types of attacks across the industry.

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