Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 67 | Page 60

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security

Palo Alto Networks expands IoT security to healthcare

Palo Alto Networks has announced the most comprehensive Internet of Things ( IoT ) security solution for healthcare .

According to the vendor , its IoT Security simplifies the challenge of securing the Internet of Medical Things ( IoMT ) through Machine Learning powered visibility , prevention and enforcement , while offering deep insights on healthcare-specific devices and vulnerabilities . This helps improve data security and patient safety while meeting the needs of both IT teams and biomedical engineering teams .
While IoT has opened the door for innovative new services across industries , it also presents new cybersecurity risks . This is particularly true in healthcare . According to a recent report from Unit 42 , 83 % of medical imaging devices are running on unsupported operating systems , making them potential avenues for attackers . Attacks on medical devices like these can potentially disrupt the quality of care and allow attackers to steal patient data . lives and bring massive savings . But if not properly secured , these same devices can pose huge risks ,” said Anand Oswal , Senior Vice President and General Manager , Firewall as a Platform , Palo Alto Networks . “ Our vision is to give healthcare organisations complete visibility , in-depth risk analysis and built-in prevention so they can get the maximum benefits from this transformative technology while reducing risks to patients and their data .”
“ Initially , Valley Health System ’ s primary objective was to better understand and enable vulnerability management of medical devices that connect to our network . As the initial step , we needed to identify those devices and understand how and where they connect within our infrastructure . As we looked at and explored various products , we saw great potential and benefits to identify not only biomed , but all network connected devices and systems . After several months of comparing various systems , we landed on IoT Security by Palo Alto Networks . IoT Security is simple , cloud-delivered , and can be deployed quickly ,” said Miroslav Belote , Chief Information Security Officer , Valley Health System . “ The installation , configuration and initial device discovery was straight forward . Within hours of turning on the system , we began seeing results – inventory , classifications , device and device risk profiles on thousands of devices . With Palo Alto Networks ’ IoT Security , we gained complete visibility to over 4,000 non-traditional IT devices , about 30 % more devices than what we had prior . We now plan to extend our inventory , vulnerability detection , and prevention process and practice as an integral part of our ongoing efforts to protect our IT and IoT assets .” p
The Palo Alto Networks IoT Security is designed to ensure Healthcare Delivery Organisations ( HDOs ) can realise the benefits of IoT for patient care – without sacrificing security . It is the industry ’ s only solution to use Machine Learning and crowdsourced telemetry to quickly and accurately profile all devices on the network – even those never seen before . IoT Security also offers Machine Learning powered policy recommendations to reduce manual effort ; intrusion prevention to block exploits ; sandboxing to detect and prevent IoT malware ; and URL and DNS security to stop IoT attacks via the web .
“ The Internet of Medical Things has the potential to improve healthcare , save
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