Shift to Zero Trust and the Urgency for Healthcare Organizations to Implement It - Part 1
Technology always seems to create its own buzzwords – one being thrown around today is Zero Trust. But what does that really mean? In this two-part series using healthcare as the example, we will drill down the components of Zero Trust, provide reasons as to why it’s necessary and best approach to implement. Here is Part 1:
As we all know, medical professionals have to be ever vigilant regarding critical infrastructure and patient data as history shows they are highly vulnerable due to the information they maintain. . In fact, there is a sense of urgency to strengthen security measures and safeguard patients’ data. And this is where implementing a zero-trust strategy comes into play.
Digital and Tech Transformation
As technology continues to intertwine itself into our every day lives and work places, the increase in cyber attacks continues. Cybercriminals now systematically target patient data. In fact, cyber theft is at an all-time high. Whether it’s a denial of service or ransomware, healthcare organizations should not overlook security standards that can compromise patient data and impact patient care.
It’s alarming as to how how many healthcare organizations still don’t use dedicated multi-factor authentication. Consequently, it invites cyber attackers to plant malicious code within the private network. But with a zero trust strategy, healthcare organizations can resolve this issue.
Identity-based Zero Trust Strategy
The mechanics of the identity-based zero-trust strategy is straightforward. It is an excellent approach for healthcare organizations to step up their security standards across the board. The identity-driven zero-trust strategy revolves around frameworks, workflows, and governance.
Identity can be part of access policies, automation, authentication protocols, and registrations. The idea is to centralize these workflows within a single governance structure. Once the identity-based zero-trust strategy is in place, it will become easier for healthcare organizations to affirm and reaffirm everyone’s identity when they try to access resources.
It means every time someone tries to sign in, the dedicated environment vets and verifies the identity before granting access. The environment, at its core, reviews whether or not the person has the privilege to access data. Interestingly, this rule can apply to any healthcare service, data, application, or device.
Considerations for Health Institutions to Implement Zero Trust Strategy
Map out data and identify key elements
Review the existing project roadmap
Embrace a zero-trust strategy for an extended period
Execute IGA or identity governance & administration
Update or develop security policies
Leverage visualization and monitoring tools
Design network parameters for future access
Leverage automation and orchestration
Make access management more robust
Implementing Zero Trust Strategy: What Else?
Implementing a zero-trust architecture strategy is about creating and executing an interdepartmental governance system. This allows you to create a holistic identity-based framework to thwart and avoid attacks on your healthcare organization.
When creating an identity-based zero-trust strategy – healthcare organizations should adopt strong and more proactive engagement regarding access policies and workflow planning. This will also ensure the interoperability of hardware components.
Remember, each policy component has to be implemented individually and correlate with the main policy. You can coordinate policy across different end-to-end touchpoints. After starting operations, you can continue to track the effectiveness of implemented policy rules and architecture.
Architectural design to strengthen internal controls
After reading this you may feel that you’re ready to implement a Zero Trust strategy but not sure where to start. In hindsight, the last thing healthcare institutions should do is implement the zero-trust architectural strategy on their own.
Implementing a zero-trust architecture strategy involves understanding workflows and handling governance which will be discussed further in Part 2 – next month – stay tuned. However, if you don’t want to wait, let us know we’re ready to discuss this with you now.