Swedish Healthcare Uses YubiKey for Securing Access to Patient Data

PALO ALTO, Calif. and STOCKHOLM, Apr. 05, 2011 — To meet the security requirements from the Swedish Data Inspection Agency, Swedish hospitals are now starting to use YubiKey USB authentication, including a world leading quality register of stroke patients.

Riks-Stroke, the national register center for acute stroke, is one of the largest quality registers in Sweden. All Swedish hospitals admitting acute stroke patients participate. With more than a quarter of a million stroke events recorded, Riks-Stroke plays a leading role in European collaboration of stroke registers.

In October 2010, the Swedish Data Inspection Agency audited the quality of national registers. Riks-Stroke was criticized for its login security routines, a critique that also affected other audited registers. The Data Inspection Agency did not consider username and password to be sufficient means of authentication and required an additional level of security for login.

Today, employees securely log on to the Riks-Stroke registration pages with a YubiKey or smart card, meeting the Data Inspection Agency’s requirements.

We believe that the system will work well,” says Per Ivarsson, Riks-Stroke secretary.

The YubiKey simplifies the process of logging in with a One-Time Password (OTP) token as it does not require the user to re-type OTPs from a display device into the login field of the computer. The YubiKey is inserted in the USB port of any computer and the OTP is generated and automatically entered with a simple touch of a button on the YubiKey, without the need of any client software or drivers. The rugged, ultra-thin, battery-free, crush safe and waterproof design has also been fundamental to the success of the YubiKey, currently used by a million users globally.

For more about Riks-Stroke, please click here.

 

About Yubico

Yubico sets new global standards for simple and secure access to computers, mobile devices, servers, and internet accounts.

The company’s core invention, the YubiKey, delivers strong hardware protection, with a simple touch, across any number of IT systems and online services. The YubiHSM, Yubico’s ultra-portable hardware security module, protects sensitive data stored in servers.

Yubico is a leading contributor to the FIDO2WebAuthn, and FIDO Universal 2nd Factor open authentication standards, and the company’s technology is deployed and loved by 9 of the top 10 internet brands and by millions of users in 160 countries.

Founded in 2007, Yubico is privately held, with offices in Sweden, UK, Germany, USA, Australia, and Singapore. For more information: www.yubico.com

Press RoomPress Room

Share this article:


  • Cybersecurity in 2025 – part two: Insights and predictions from Yubico’s expertsIn part one of our 2025 cybersecurity predictions, we highlighted insights from our experts on the topic of passkeys, digital identity wallets and the threats of AI-driven phishing – areas that saw a lot of focus in 2024, and ones that we expect to continue being a major focus this year. If you missed our […]Read morecritical infrastructurefederal governmentfinancial servicespredictions
  • Cybersecurity in 2025: Insights and predictions from Yubico’s expertsWith 2024 behind us, we saw another challenging year in the world of cybersecurity – highlighted by new and evolving threats like Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven phishing and increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks overall. Yubico’s September Global State of Authentication Survey confirmed the challenges, even underscoring the potential risks of these new threats. The report emphasized the […]Read moreAIdigital identity walletspasskeyspredictions
  • State of Global Authentic(age)ion: A look at cybersecurity habits by generationsNo generations were left untouched when it came to the threat of hackers in 2024: from the impact of political shakeups, to increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks targeting consumers, critical industries and infrastructures, the world was on high alert. Fueled by a dramatic increase in phishing attacks circumventing certain forms of legacy multi-factor authentication (MFA), as […]Read moreState of Global Authenticationsurvey
  • Yubico named finalists of German digital identity innovation competitionIn 2023, Yubico began collaborating on an exciting open standards identity project – wwWallet – to shape the future of digital identity across Europe and beyond. The project saw immediate success solving problems for global identity, and was submitted in the German SPRIN-D European Digital Identity (EUDI) Funke competition which aims to develop and test […]Read moreEU Digital Identity WalletEUDIwwWalet