Background

In October 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights reported the health records of nearly 14.5 million individuals had been subjected to a cyber hack—a drastic jump from nearly 113,000 the previous year.

That same year, a Ponemon benchmark study found that 80% of provider respondents admitted their organizations had experienced a recent “significant security incident”, yet only 1 in 6 had basic security measures in place, and the majority stated they used no firewalls or network monitoring tools.

Challenge

Although under pressure to consolidate systems to protect the confidentiality, availability and integrity of patient and network data, evidence shows that many processes have gaps and vulnerabilities that serve as “hot spots” for malicious activity. At the same time, the expanded use of internet-enabled medical devices and electronic databases for clinical, financial and administrative operations are serving to increase the exposure to potential cyber attacks.

To address this complex situation, Cytellix has pioneered the development of proactive cybersecurity situational awareness — based on the same Cytellix solution that monitors the network perimeter of the U.S. Department of Defense — as a managed service subscription that’s affordable to healthcare organizations of all sizes.

Solution

Cytellix has developed the only solution in the industry that can assess, identify and detect known and “unknown” threats in any enterprise environment, while providing complete network visibility.

Our leading-edge scanning technology continuously monitors network connections and activity in real time, serving as the first line of defense in identifying and addressing potential threats, while ensuring continuity through any changes.

When a threat is detected, we can immediately evaluate and identify any network leaks or “unknown” assets and their posture, along with prevention recommendations and optional remediation services. Among the common threats identified are data leaks, segmentation, rogue connections, bad actor site connections and high-risk open ports.

For true visibility, our solution deploys a cloud-based, agent-less sensor that determines and monitors the total state of a network, including individual connected devices as well as the effective topology of the network itself. These subsystems create a sensor network that collectively reveals nominal and nefarious behavior throughout, ensuring real-time awareness and instant notification of suspect activity.