Enterprise Strategy Group: The Big Data Security Analytics Era is HereEMC
This analyst report explains that organizations can no longer rely on preventive security systems, point security tools, manual processes, and hardened configurations to protect against targeted attacks. Henceforth, security management must be based on continuous monitoring and big data analysis for situational awareness and rapid decisions.
Industry Overview: Big Data Fuels Intelligence-Driven SecurityEMC
This industry overview describes how Big Data will be a driver for change across the security industry, reshaping security approaches, solutions, and spending. It presents six guidelines to help organizations plan for the Big Data-driven transformation of their security toolsets and operations as part of an intelligence-driven security program.
Risk management is one of the main concepts that have been used by most of the organisations to protect their assets and data. One such example would be INSURANCE. Most of the insurance like Life, Health, and Auto etc have been formulated to help people protect their assets against losses. Risk management has also extended its roots to physical devices, such as locks and doors to protect homes and automobiles, password protected vaults to protect money and jewels, police, fire, security to protect against other physical risks. Dr. C. Umarani | Shriniketh D "Risk Management" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-5 | Issue-1 , December 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd37916.pdf Paper URL : https://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/computer-security/37916/risk-management/dr-c-umarani
Enterprise Strategy Group: The Big Data Security Analytics Era is HereEMC
This analyst report explains that organizations can no longer rely on preventive security systems, point security tools, manual processes, and hardened configurations to protect against targeted attacks. Henceforth, security management must be based on continuous monitoring and big data analysis for situational awareness and rapid decisions.
Industry Overview: Big Data Fuels Intelligence-Driven SecurityEMC
This industry overview describes how Big Data will be a driver for change across the security industry, reshaping security approaches, solutions, and spending. It presents six guidelines to help organizations plan for the Big Data-driven transformation of their security toolsets and operations as part of an intelligence-driven security program.
Risk management is one of the main concepts that have been used by most of the organisations to protect their assets and data. One such example would be INSURANCE. Most of the insurance like Life, Health, and Auto etc have been formulated to help people protect their assets against losses. Risk management has also extended its roots to physical devices, such as locks and doors to protect homes and automobiles, password protected vaults to protect money and jewels, police, fire, security to protect against other physical risks. Dr. C. Umarani | Shriniketh D "Risk Management" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-5 | Issue-1 , December 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd37916.pdf Paper URL : https://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/computer-security/37916/risk-management/dr-c-umarani
The growing costs of security breaches and manual compliance efforts have given rise to new data security solutions specifically designed to prevent data breaches and deliver automated compliance. This paper examines the drivers for adopting a strategic approach to data security, compares and contrasts current approaches, and presents the Return on Security Investment (ROSI) of viable data security solutions.
Prevention is futile in 2020 - Gartner Report in RetrospectJermund Ottermo
Published in 2013 and refreshed in 2016. Observe that Panda Security’s Adaptive Defense approach has historically progressed in the right direction according to the analysis. Find questions from the report below and answers highlighted in the report itself.
Why a cloud-based, collective intelligence, big-data solution as Adaptive Defense?
Why do we have a huge opportunity ahead of us?
Why should we move faster that competitors?
Why Adaptive Defense is a cost-effective solution well positioned to face the shift From Control-Centric to People-Centric Security?
Why can we state that Adaptive Defense is a well-positioned solution to face the Shift Security Program Emphasis to Rapid Detection and Response?
What do Adaptive Defense monitoring and capabilities represent? How can ART help to understand the dynamics of an attack?
Adaptive Defense provides EPP+EDR capabilities into a single product already tested on the field, so it is a good answer for Gartner’s recommendations of this report?
State of Security Operations 2016 report of capabilities and maturity of cybe...at MicroFocus Italy ❖✔
As businesses continue to adopt new cloud and mobile functionality rapidly, we find the
edges of the network even more blurred, and our definitions of data ownership and breach
responsibility continue to evolve. Staffing and training continue to be the foremost challenge
of the modern SOC. This is paving the way to hybrid staffing models and hybrid infrastructures
that require less in-house expertise. As a result, highly skilled security team members can then
be utilized for a more specialized hunt and analytics-focused work.
There is no question this year has been both an exciting and challenging time to be in the field
of cyber security. On one hand, it is disheartening to see the continued decline in the maturity
and effectiveness of security operations, while, on the other, I know that we are in the middle
of an exciting and transformative change in our field. You can feel it. We must go where the
data leads us, and we believe that is to widen our definition of security operations to leverage
analytics, data science, Big Data, and shared intelligence to become more effective in protecting
today’s digital enterprise.
An overview of Enterprise Security Architecture (ESA), with a brief description of its key elements: TRA/PIA, Threat Modeling, Security Controls, Risk Assessment and Security Debt.
An IT risk assessment does more than just tell you about the state of security of your IT infrastructure; it can facilitate decision-making on your organizational security strategy. Some of the benefits of conducting an IT risk assessment are:
This paper discusses the question of optimizing security decisions in an organization, based on the information provided by the technical security infrastructure.
IT SECURITY PLAN FOR FLIGHT SIMULATION PROGRAMIJCSEA Journal
Information security is one of the most important aspects of technology, we cannot protect the best interests of our organizations' assets (be that personnel, data, or other resources), without ensuring that these assetsare protected to the best of their ability. Within the Defense Department, this is vital to the security of not just those assets but also the national security of the United States. Compromise insecurity could lead severe consequences. However, technology changes so rapidly that change has to be made to reflect these changes with security in mind. This article outlines a growing technological change (virtualization and cloud computing), and how to properly address IT security concerns within an operating environment. By leveraging a series of encrypted physical and virtual systems, andnetwork isolation measures, this paper delivered a secured high performance computing environment that efficiently utilized computing resources, reduced overall computer processing costs, and ensures confidentiality, integrity, and availability of systems within the operating environment
Title XIII of ARRA, also known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), reserves $22 billion to "advance the use of health information technology" -- in large part so the U.S. will be able to move to e-health records by President Obama\'s 2014 deadline.
Healthcare Infrastructure Solutions that Deliver Dramatic SavingsMestizo Enterprises
Shrinking Budgets, Consolidation, and the incessant demand for more functionality, more services, more integration at lower cost is harming healthcare operations. Decision Makers are at a loss when faced with technical decisions that force them to spend money on cable plants, network switches, telco closet expansions to meet "today's standards", and more and more energy consumption. Sandia National LABS cut more than 1 Million Kilowatt hours and is predicting a savings of 20 Million Dollars over the next 5 years alone and they spent less money on upgrades than ever before.
The growing costs of security breaches and manual compliance efforts have given rise to new data security solutions specifically designed to prevent data breaches and deliver automated compliance. This paper examines the drivers for adopting a strategic approach to data security, compares and contrasts current approaches, and presents the Return on Security Investment (ROSI) of viable data security solutions.
Prevention is futile in 2020 - Gartner Report in RetrospectJermund Ottermo
Published in 2013 and refreshed in 2016. Observe that Panda Security’s Adaptive Defense approach has historically progressed in the right direction according to the analysis. Find questions from the report below and answers highlighted in the report itself.
Why a cloud-based, collective intelligence, big-data solution as Adaptive Defense?
Why do we have a huge opportunity ahead of us?
Why should we move faster that competitors?
Why Adaptive Defense is a cost-effective solution well positioned to face the shift From Control-Centric to People-Centric Security?
Why can we state that Adaptive Defense is a well-positioned solution to face the Shift Security Program Emphasis to Rapid Detection and Response?
What do Adaptive Defense monitoring and capabilities represent? How can ART help to understand the dynamics of an attack?
Adaptive Defense provides EPP+EDR capabilities into a single product already tested on the field, so it is a good answer for Gartner’s recommendations of this report?
State of Security Operations 2016 report of capabilities and maturity of cybe...at MicroFocus Italy ❖✔
As businesses continue to adopt new cloud and mobile functionality rapidly, we find the
edges of the network even more blurred, and our definitions of data ownership and breach
responsibility continue to evolve. Staffing and training continue to be the foremost challenge
of the modern SOC. This is paving the way to hybrid staffing models and hybrid infrastructures
that require less in-house expertise. As a result, highly skilled security team members can then
be utilized for a more specialized hunt and analytics-focused work.
There is no question this year has been both an exciting and challenging time to be in the field
of cyber security. On one hand, it is disheartening to see the continued decline in the maturity
and effectiveness of security operations, while, on the other, I know that we are in the middle
of an exciting and transformative change in our field. You can feel it. We must go where the
data leads us, and we believe that is to widen our definition of security operations to leverage
analytics, data science, Big Data, and shared intelligence to become more effective in protecting
today’s digital enterprise.
An overview of Enterprise Security Architecture (ESA), with a brief description of its key elements: TRA/PIA, Threat Modeling, Security Controls, Risk Assessment and Security Debt.
An IT risk assessment does more than just tell you about the state of security of your IT infrastructure; it can facilitate decision-making on your organizational security strategy. Some of the benefits of conducting an IT risk assessment are:
This paper discusses the question of optimizing security decisions in an organization, based on the information provided by the technical security infrastructure.
IT SECURITY PLAN FOR FLIGHT SIMULATION PROGRAMIJCSEA Journal
Information security is one of the most important aspects of technology, we cannot protect the best interests of our organizations' assets (be that personnel, data, or other resources), without ensuring that these assetsare protected to the best of their ability. Within the Defense Department, this is vital to the security of not just those assets but also the national security of the United States. Compromise insecurity could lead severe consequences. However, technology changes so rapidly that change has to be made to reflect these changes with security in mind. This article outlines a growing technological change (virtualization and cloud computing), and how to properly address IT security concerns within an operating environment. By leveraging a series of encrypted physical and virtual systems, andnetwork isolation measures, this paper delivered a secured high performance computing environment that efficiently utilized computing resources, reduced overall computer processing costs, and ensures confidentiality, integrity, and availability of systems within the operating environment
Title XIII of ARRA, also known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), reserves $22 billion to "advance the use of health information technology" -- in large part so the U.S. will be able to move to e-health records by President Obama\'s 2014 deadline.
Healthcare Infrastructure Solutions that Deliver Dramatic SavingsMestizo Enterprises
Shrinking Budgets, Consolidation, and the incessant demand for more functionality, more services, more integration at lower cost is harming healthcare operations. Decision Makers are at a loss when faced with technical decisions that force them to spend money on cable plants, network switches, telco closet expansions to meet "today's standards", and more and more energy consumption. Sandia National LABS cut more than 1 Million Kilowatt hours and is predicting a savings of 20 Million Dollars over the next 5 years alone and they spent less money on upgrades than ever before.
The Security Gap: Protecting Healthcare Data in Office 365Bitglass
One in three healthcare organizations had a cloud app like Office 365 deployed in 2015, driven by ease of deployment, cost effectiveness, and improved productivity among employees. While cloud app vendors like Microsoft have built robust infrastructure-level security, data security is the enterprise's responsibility. Healthcare organizations need a cloud security solution that protects PHI end-to-end, from cloud to device.
Roadmap to Healthcare HIPAA Compliance and Mobile Security for BYODSierraware
Simplifying BYOD deployments while satisfying HIPAA and other healthcare regulations. Virtual Mobile Infrastructure with strong biometric authentication and 4096-bit encryption. Android-based VDI for mobile security.
This presentation delves into the many cybersecurty risks that plague the healthcare industry and how these risks can be mitigated with the help of security solutions that Seqrite offers.
Building an Intelligence-Driven Security Operations CenterEMC
This white paper describes how an intelligence-driven security operations center (SOC) improves threat detection and response by helping organizations use all available security-related information from both internal and external sources to detect hidden threats and even predict new ones.
Threat Hunting Procedures and Measurement MatriceVishal Kumar
This document will provide the basics of Cyber Threat Hunting and answers of some Q such as; What is Threat Hunting?, What is the Importance of Threat Hunting, and How it can be start....Bla..Bla..Bla...
Defense Report began the process of looking beyond
headline-grabbing breaches and the nth stage in the
evolution of cyberthreats to better understand the
perceptions, concerns, and priorities of the IT security
professionals charged with defending today’s networks.
Representative findings from that first report included
the revelation that one in four security professionals
doubts whether their organization has invested
adequately in cyberthreat defenses, the identification of
mobile devices as IT security’s “weakest link,” and the
expectation that more than three-quarters of businesses
will adopt bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies by
2016.
Whitepaper next generation_patient_safety_bertine_mc_kenna.01Ronan Martin
This is not your grandfather’s white paper. Dr. Bertine McKenna talks about healthcare cybersecurity from an executive perspective. Learn where to put your attention when it comes to tailoring a cybersecurity program.
Executives are missing an opportunity to ensure that we are ahead of this curve like every other curve we have had to be ahead of. Cybersecurity is not an IT issue – it is an operational issue focused on patient safety. It is a safety hazard requiring full attention and innovative solutions.
On World Backup Day 2014, the Data Loss Gremlins unleashed a dastardly attack on businesses worldwide! Intronis has published this Tech Guide, the 6 Ways to Fight the Data Loss Gremlins, to help IT solutions providers protect their clients from any data loss disaster.
For more classes visit
www.snaptutorial.com
CST 610 Project 1 Information Systems and Identity Management
CST 610 Project 2 Operating Systems Vulnerabilities (Windows and Linux)
CST 610 Project 3 Assessing Information System Vulnerabilities and Risk
CST 610 Project 4 Threat Analysis and Exploitation
Similar to A New Approach to Healthcare Security (20)
My view on VMware approach to Hybrid- and Software-Defined Infrastructure: NSX, Hybrid Cloud and OpenStack. Get the agility of a startup with the guarantees of Enterprise-class IT. Session delivered at asLAN Congress 2015 in Madrid on April 15th.
GET THE ORIGINAL: https://onecloud.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/8/sites/8/2015/02/0218_Admin_NSX_Schematic.pdf?elqID=CVMWR000037077188&cid=70180000000NktD&src=socialmedia_15Q1_vmw28days_US_28_og_LI
GET YOUR COPY: https://onecloud.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/8/sites/8/2015/02/0217_Admin_NSX_Infographic.pdf?elqID=CVMWR000037077188&cid=70180000000NktD&src=socialmedia_15Q1_vmw28days_US_28_og_FB?cid=70180000000NktD&src=socialmedia_15Q1_vmw28days_US_28_og_ADV
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
Alt. GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using ...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Dr. Sean Tan, Head of Data Science, Changi Airport Group
Discover how Changi Airport Group (CAG) leverages graph technologies and generative AI to revolutionize their search capabilities. This session delves into the unique search needs of CAG’s diverse passengers and customers, showcasing how graph data structures enhance the accuracy and relevance of AI-generated search results, mitigating the risk of “hallucinations” and improving the overall customer journey.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
GridMate - End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid...ThomasParaiso2
End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid regressions. In this session, we share our journey building an E2E testing pipeline for GridMate components (LWC and Aura) using Cypress, JSForce, FakerJS…
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Climate Impact of Software Testing at Nordic Testing DaysKari Kakkonen
My slides at Nordic Testing Days 6.6.2024
Climate impact / sustainability of software testing discussed on the talk. ICT and testing must carry their part of global responsibility to help with the climat warming. We can minimize the carbon footprint but we can also have a carbon handprint, a positive impact on the climate. Quality characteristics can be added with sustainability, and then measured continuously. Test environments can be used less, and in smaller scale and on demand. Test techniques can be used in optimizing or minimizing number of tests. Test automation can be used to speed up testing.
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Pushing the limits of ePRTC: 100ns holdover for 100 daysAdtran
At WSTS 2024, Alon Stern explored the topic of parametric holdover and explained how recent research findings can be implemented in real-world PNT networks to achieve 100 nanoseconds of accuracy for up to 100 days.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 5DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 5. In this session, we will cover CI/CD with devops.
Topics covered:
CI/CD with in UiPath
End-to-end overview of CI/CD pipeline with Azure devops
Speaker:
Lyndsey Byblow, Test Suite Sales Engineer @ UiPath, Inc.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 5
A New Approach to Healthcare Security
1. A New Approach to
Healthcare Security
Defense in depth strategy powered by VMware NSX
safeguards healthcare infrastructure, applications, and devices
W H I T E P A P E R
3. W H I T E P A P E R / 3
A New Approach to Healthcare Security
Overview
Electronic patient care and health insurance systems contain millions of valuable records, making them an
attractive target for intruders seeking to mine sensitive information. The FBI estimates that each health record
is worth $50. Some sources quote even more, upwards of $200. More than 80 percent of healthcare Chief
Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), and other security leaders polled by KPMG say
their organizations have been victimized by at least one cyber attack in the past two years—and many still feel
like sitting ducks. The reality for most healthcare CIOs and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) is this:
today, it is not a question of if, but rather when, their systems will be attacked.
Advanced intrusion continues to succeed because healthcare IT organizations are meeting mandated
requirements—from HIPAA to HITECH*—without taking a defense in depth approach to safeguarding data.
They have invested heavily in data center perimeter security but find their solutions falling short when they
are asked to address critical business questions such as the following:
• How can we improve our security to effort ratio?
• Is security at the perimeter enough to protect our business from data breaches?
• How can we secure network traffic inside the data center?
• How can we quarantine attacks and limit damage to the rest of network—without incurring huge hardware and
firewall costs or an outage?
This paper addresses these questions and more about how healthcare organizations handle breaches, including
phishing and malware which operate unfettered internally. It also describes how VMware solutions mitigate
risks by delivering the comprehensive protections from breaches that today’s security-conscious healthcare
organizations require.
Key Insights
• Healthcare organizations are targets of large-scale security breaches.
• Healthcare organizations must advance security postures beyond compliance with regulations—e.g., HIPAA
and HITECH.
• Leading HIT teams are adopting software-defined solutions and a layered approach to security that delivers
not only protections but also strategic business advantages.
• Six critical capabilities comprise best practices security frameworks and deliver significant ROI.
• Defense in depth strategy powered by VMware NSX safeguards HIT infrastructure, applications, and devices.
Healthcare organizations are targets of large-scale security breaches.
Digital attacks have become so broad and sophisticated that the Ponemon Institute coined “2014: A Year of
Mega Breaches,” and predicted 2015 to be as bad or worse as more sensitive and confidential information and
transactions will be moved to the digital space and become vulnerable to attack.1
The healthcare industry is a prime target:
• In the U.S. alone, 100 million healthcare records were compromised in Q1 2015.2
• The Identity Theft Resource Center tagged healthcare as the source of 33 percent of all listed incidents
nationwide.
• A full 84 percent of healthcare organizations have been breached in last two years.
• A class-action lawsuit is typically filed only one week after a breach is reported.
* Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 and the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health
(HITECH) Act enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
1. Ponemon Institute. “2014: A Year of Mega Breaches,” January 28, 2015.
2. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2015
4. W H I T E P A P E R / 4
A New Approach to Healthcare Security
“Absolute security will never be a guarantee. Cyber attacks should be considered a constant threat and we need
better tools and technologies to mitigate the risk and combat the attacks,”3
according to Sutter Health CIO John
Manis in a recent Scottsdale Institute CIO Summit report.
While 81 percent of those surveyed by KPMG have been recently compromised by malware, botnets, or other
cyber-attacks, only 53 percent of providers and 66 percent of payers say they feel adequately prepared for a
cyber attack.4
Other breaches also concern enterprise leaders, according to the Fifth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy &
Security of Healthcare Data, research independently conducted by Ponemon Institute LLC in May 2015. (Figure 1)
Figure 1. Most Concerning Breaches
Employee negligence, use of public cloud services, malicious insiders, and process failures can be mitigated
with strong, auditable user-access controls and micro-segmentation while cyber attackers and identity thieves
can be thwarted with strong encryption tied to boundary controls. By using data sovereignty to ensure
restricted or regulated data, certain physical areas are protected regardless of who is requesting the data.
Healthcare organizations must advance security postures beyond regulation compliance.
Healthcare organizations working to meet more stringent government and industry requirements cannot predict
the levels to which cyber criminals will go to breach their systems. VMware and its partners provide proven
virtualization solutions that help healthcare organizations address the confidentiality, integrity, and availability
requirements in HIPAA and HITECH around personally identifiable information. Beyond compliance, VMware and
partners also provide solutions to protect healthcare organizations against today’s targeted security threats.
3. HealthIT Security. “Why Healthcare Security Must Be Top Priority for CIOs,” November 24, 2014.
4. Healthcare IT News. “4 in 5 health orgs hit by cyber crooks.” August 27, 2015.
5. W H I T E P A P E R / 5
A New Approach to Healthcare Security
VMware solutions support a defense in depth strategy to combat intrusions. An information assurance concept
where multiple layers of security controls are incorporated throughout the IT system, a defense in depth
approach helps organizations provide redundancies to prevent vulnerabilities in case one or more controls fail.
Most HIT teams have not integrated a full complement of layered protections for their healthcare infrastructure,
applications, and mobile devices, which includes:
Platform security Distributed firewalls, platform hardening, secure lifecycle development
Secure operations and automation Enterprise policy controls for security, compliance, configurations, and deployment
Virtualization Interoperable advanced networking and security services
Compliance guidance Frameworks, validated reference architectures
Leading HIT teams are adopting software-defined solutions and a layered approach to security that
delivers not only protections but also strategic business advantages.
New models of patient care require that systems are highly reliable and that data can be accessed by patients,
caregivers, and payers anytime, anywhere. A software-defined strategy coupled with a defense in depth
approach is one in which all infrastructure is virtualized and delivered as a service, and where protections are
ensured at many layers by interoperable security and compliance frameworks. (Figure 1). When HIT
organizations embrace this software-defined approach as the foundation for their IT infrastructure and
applications, they can more quickly respond to new demands and their systems become more intelligent,
automated, mobile, and secure.
In a software-defined environment with multiple layers of security and compliance, all elements of the
infrastructure—compute, network, storage, and security—are virtualized to enable applications to leverage a
fully virtualized platform that is completely abstracted from the hardware layer. The environment is safeguarded
with protections for infrastructure, applications, and end-point devices. Because environments become more
application and service focused, HIT organizations not only improve security and data protection, they increase
IT efficiency, agility, flexibility, and control.
Figure 1: VMare provides an interoperable, multifaceted approach to meet security requirements.
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Six critical capabilities comprise best practices security frameworks and deliver significant ROI.
VMware and VMware partner solutions incorporate the six critical capabilities that healthcare organizations need
to safeguard their HIT environments. With VMware NSX®, healthcare organizations can define groups (e.g., app)
based on things such as OS, workload type (web, app, database) and more. VMware NSX also acts as a platform
to deliver best-possible security services, both natively and through more than 30 technology partners. A best
practices approach may begin with a passive listener mode to monitor critical activity and determine the status
of intra-virtual machine traffic. (Figure 2)
Figure 2: Best-practice, defense in depth security framework enables HIT organizations to remain vigilant by providing proactive protections to address
multifaceted challenges
1. Distributed firewalls
The security model that most healthcare organizations use today relies heavily on the border where the
network meets the Internet. There are established demilitarized zones with edge firewalls and inspection
for systems accessed from outside. Although edge firewall measures protect the systems and can prevent
system-level attacks, recent attacks have evolved beyond this method’s ability to protect care environments
from other methods of breach. Inside the environment is generally considered safe—and most internal systems
can talk to just about any other internal system—workstations included, however, this internal openness is now
being exploited.
Distributed firewalls are a new approach that brings strength to data center security by tying flexible security
policies to individual workloads or workload groups. If a threat gets inside the network, VMware NSX contains
and blocks the threat’s lateral movement to other servers. This dramatically reduces the attack surface and risk
to the business. HIT teams are using distributed firewalls (also known as micro-segmentation) to solve a
significant problem that was operationally infeasible with traditional firewalls, and have reported doing so at
approximately one-third the cost.
Some examples of workload segmentation include distributed firewall for regulated workloads such as PHI
and PCI; managing virtual desktops in groups (e.g., external coders); finance, back-office, clinical or external
organizations such as affiliates or recently acquired organizations.
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Dynamic and distributed policy enforcement at the virtual-machine level dramatically enhances network
security. For healthcare organizations that equates to tighter linkages with third-party solutions that mitigate
issues such as misconfigured firewall rules. For example, HIT teams can more effectively monitor ports or
establish route-specific traffic to an external solution such as Palo Alto Networks for intelligent inspection.
With distributed firewalls, healthcare organizations can speed processes when challenged to react to a
problem and remediate it quickly, then audit the results to validate protected workloads are in compliance.
Distributed firewalls increase consistency with streamlined operations and auto-deployment. Because security
policies are applied to individual workloads, and travel with the workload as it moves around in the data center,
portable policy administration is ensured. Moreover, a distributed firewall can improve performance, simplify
operations, and create transparency.
Distributed firewalls help to avoid or minimize the costs of a data breach, including engaging forensic
experts, in-house investigations, loss of customers from turnover or diminished acquisition rates, providing
free credit or identity monitoring subscriptions, customer communications and outsourcing hotline support,
and many other costs that can range from several million to more than one hundred million dollars for a single
data breach incident.
Traditionally, deploying firewalls to control an increasing volume of East-West traffic inside the data center
has been cost prohibitive for many enterprises. Additionally, the sheer number of devices needed and the
effort required to setup and manage a complex matrix of firewall rules has made this approach
operationally infeasible.
In addition to making micro-segmentation simpler and more secure, VMware NSX delivers significant CapEx
and OpEx reductions for this specific use case. Looking at the capital expense alone, VMware NSX enables
enterprises to save upwards of 70 percent over purchasing physical firewalls for micro-segmentation.
Following is an analysis of the CapEx savings for a typical enterprise that wants to use micro-segmentation
for improved control of server-to-server traffic inside the data center. (Table 1)
Table 1: Distributed Firewall CapEx Savings
* Network Virtualization and Security with VMware NSX.” 2015.
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2. Proactive, real-time compliance
Many HIT teams spend time developing manual reports just for audit purposes. However, it is much more
effective to rely on built-in, real-time audit capabilities to provide proactive rather than reactive compliance.
Organizations using real-time compliance solutions can continuously monitor their infrastructure, looking for
and receiving alerts to any changes. As a result, they can proactively address issues and security gaps as they
happen which helps better protect the integrity of HIT resources while keeping the organization in compliance.
HIT teams can also provide the critical reports required to meet internal and external audits and quickly
remediate compliance issues.
VMware and VMware partners including HyTrust provide solutions that support regulatory requirements and
workflows. A real-time, automated compliance checking solution, such as VMware vRealize® Air™ Compliance,
automates the detection of non-compliant infrastructure against industry best practices and hardening
guidelines—without manual effort or custom scripting.
3. Virtual desktops and mobile device management
Using virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), HIT teams can segment vulnerable desktops from the rest of the
data center and mission-critical server workloads. By integrating third-party solutions, such as Imprivata’s
Single Sign-On and Tap In/Tap Out, healthcare workflows are even easier to support and optimize. Firewalls
can be assigned based on logical groupings while distributed firewalls provide isolation and segmentation of
specific workloads (see description of distributed firewalls). In addition, VDI helps secure protected health
information (PHI) from becoming lost or stolen when a device is compromised by ensuring data remains in
the data center. This is especially important for organizations with caregivers working at patient bedsides, in
remote clinics, or even from home or while mobile.
With an enterprise mobility management platform, HIT teams have the flexibility to support the unified
management of endpoints, end-to-end security from devices to the data center, and seamless integration
across enterprise systems. A single platform can provide HIT teams with powerful automation engines so
team members can easily manage a growing number of workstations, PCs, tablets, and mobile devices.
Through containerization and context-aware VMware NSX policies, HIT teams can protect sensitive corporate
data at the user, application, device, and network levels.
Moreover, HIT teams can manage anti-virus and anti-malware policies for virtualized environments using the
same management interfaces they use to secure physical infrastructure. Healthcare organizations gain
stronger virtualization security with enhanced end-point protection by offloading anti-virus processing to a
secure virtual appliance.
4. Automated security and operations
Automation is critical to a successful security and cloud strategy. Healthcare organizations can proactively
monitor, alert, troubleshoot, and resolve performance and operational issues before they affect end users by
integrating application and infrastructure performance data for greater visibility into healthcare IT systems.
Predictive analytics, powerful visualization, and progressive integration capabilities across physical, virtual,
and cloud infrastructures increase the likelihood of finding and resolving issues quickly.
Additionally, HIT teams can develop security policies and blueprints to ensure deployed regulated workloads
are always in compliance. Within a single portal, virtual network rules can be created, managed, and
automated, and HIT teams can enable self-service with confidence. Troubleshooting and forensics tools aid in
management, supporting the virtual network.
Enterprises are using VMware NSX to realize significant operational cost reductions because it dramatically
reduces the manual effort and cycle time for networking tasks, including provisioning, change/adaptation,
scaling, and troubleshooting/remediation. (Cycle time accounts for delays due to requests, approvals,
coordination, handoffs, logistics, downtime windows, etc.)
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As the following OpEx analysis shows, VMware NSX dramatically speeds the initial provisioning of a network
into production. With traditional hardware, the associated cycle time to provision a network for a new
application forces enterprises to wait 23 days. VMware NSX reduces that to minutes – nearly a 100 percent
reduction and massive time-to-market win. Likewise, provisioning a network for a new application takes 14
person hours or close to two days of person effort. VMware NSX reduces that to less than 2 person
hours—a substantial 87 percent reduction. (Table 2)
Table 2: IT Automation OpEx Reduction
5. Network efficiency and asset utilization
Cost and utilization pressures are heating up as healthcare reform funding and reimbursements evolve.
HIT teams are becoming frustrated with hardware churn for networking assets because of time and cost
replacement demands. When healthcare organizations apply network virtualization, they gain greater flexibility
in the hardware layer because features and controls are applied in software. With network virtualization,
internal data center traffic is managed between the virtual machines rather than to the physical network and
back to servers. By freeing up internal data center traffic, HIT teams can improve the performance of both the
network and servers while reducing operational effort.
Specifically, VMware NSX provides the operational model of a VM for networks. HIT teams use VMware NSX to
streamline provisioning of network services from weeks to seconds. This removes the manual effort and cycle
times associated with procuring, installing, and configuring traditional network hardware. The solution’s
powerful orchestration capabilities programmatically distribute network services in lock step with virtual
machines. Healthcare organizations use VMware NSX to standardize and maintain pre-defined templates that
consist of the network topologies and services. The solution’s automation capabilities reduce operational
expense, accelerate time-to-market, and speed IT service delivery.
NSX also streamlines operations by consolidating configuration state and instrumentation data for all network
connections. Administrators have complete operational visibility into what’s occurring across the entire
network infrastructure. This simplifies traffic management, monitoring, troubleshooting, and remediation.
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Enterprises are using VMware NSX to access islands of unused compute capacity inside the data center. In
traditional topologies each network cluster has its own compute capacity. IT often over provisions compute
because the network re-configuration required to reach available capacity in another cluster takes too long
and is prone to error. By many measures, 60 percent or more of a network’s total compute capacity remains
dormant, which is a waste of resources. HIT teams are using VMware NSX to bridge two or more network
clusters and deploy workloads to this unused capacity. As a result, they are saving upwards of 88 percent by
using existing server capacity rather than purchasing new physical servers. The following CapEx analysis
shows how much enterprise save in annual server expenses by leveraging VMware NSX to use more of its
existing compute capacity. (Table 3)
Table 3: Server Asset Utilization CapEx Saving
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6. Management of multiple-location enterprises
Leveraging network virtualization provides freedom for IP address management through encapsulation. This is
particularly relevant for healthcare organizations involved in merger, acquisition, and affiliation activities. The
implementation of a merged network may be a major critical path item in the consolidation plan yet risks may
exist which could be easily mitigated with segmentation. As acquiring organizations seeks to drive efficiencies
and expand business models, they can uncover unknown risks that may exist in their acquired organizations’ IT
systems. More effective network security can help ensure a successful business relationship from the start.
Moreover, HIT teams are leveraging VMware NSX as a complement to their existing disaster recovery (DR)
solutions. The solution is helping them to reduce their recovery time objective (RTO) by upwards of 80 percent,
considerably minimizing downtime and cost to the business. HIT teams use VMware NSX to replicate the entire
network and its security environment. They periodically snapshot the network construct, along with its
applications and services, and maintain it at a recover site. IT does not need to change IP addresses because
the virtual network construct is decoupled from the underlying hardware and topology. The disaster recovery
site is identical to the primary site, with no tradeoffs in functionality or performance. The copy sits at the
recovery site in standby mode for push-button activation in the event of a disaster. Any changes made to the
source network are automatically replicated to the copy at the recovery site.
Defense in depth strategy powered by VMware NSX safeguards HIT infrastructure, applications, and devices.
Now is the time for healthcare organizations to adopt a new model for data center security; one that’s defined in
software, with native and third-party security controls that allow HIT teams to protect workloads at the virtual
level, across private and hybrid cloud infrastructures. VMware vCloud for Healthcare features comprehensive
mobility, private cloud, and public cloud services that advance a defense in depth approach by helping HIT
teams improve delivery outcomes and address the compounding cost, quality, and delivery challenges of patient
care while safeguarding information and systems. (Figure 3)
The vCloud for Healthcare portfolio of solutions includes the following key capabilities:
• Mobility services – VDI, cloud workspaces, and enterprise mobility management
• Private cloud services – Security and compliance, systems analytics, IT financial management, automation,
and business continuity
• Public cloud services – Hybrid cloud deployment
Figure 3: A comprehensive approach to security and compliance
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With VMware security and real-time monitoring solutions, healthcare organizations achieve business and IT
benefits:
• Network security inside the data center – HIT teams can create fully isolated and protected parallel virtual
networks on top of existing physical networks.
• Automated deployments and data center agility – HIT teams can implement powerful security policies that
mirror business logic and workflows.
• Integration with leading networking and security infrastructure – HIT teams can continue to use existing
security products within a new advanced platform—without the need for extra investment. vCloud for
Healthcare has been integrated with and tested by leading healthcare ISVs to ensure it meets healthcare
organizations’ security and compliance needs.
Learn More
Threats to healthcare IT show no signs of dissipating. Most CIOs and CISOs are choosing to deploy a multifaceted,
defense in depth approach to security because it provides their healthcare organizations with best-practices
security frameworks. HIT teams are using these frameworks to mitigate and anticipate risks. They are also
integrating frameworks with layered security to increase system uptime and accessibility while improving IT
flexibility and agility as they respond to issues.
While the goal of every healthcare organization is to develop a strategy and deploy proven solutions that evolve
with increasing threats, only a few technology companies provide comprehensive security and compliance
support. VMware and VMware partners deliver the platform security, secure operations, security virtualization,
and compliance guidance healthcare HIT teams require, where and when they need protection most.
To learn more about vCloud for Healthcare and how VMware solutions safeguard healthcare infrastructure,
applications, and mobile devices, visit http://www.vmware.com/industry/healthcare/overview.
Existing VMware customers may also explore the benefits of vRealize Air Compliance as a service and VMware
compliance checkers at http://vrealizeair.vmware.com/compliance or by contacting their account teams for
more information.