We stay on the topic of health data security because as a critical piece of technology, this will always be a challenge for any healthcare organization housing sensitive data. Healthcare is also bound by regulation, compliance, and evolving considerations around the end-user.
When you look at a healthcare ecosystem, you’ll see a lot of the same cloud and even data center components that other verticals will deploy. There’s application delivery, storage controls, wireless architectures, and more. However, policy deployment and health data security best practices can be quite different. Still, the idea for healthcare organizations is to deploy smart security. This means properly locking down an entire environment while still empowering the end-user.
To do so, health data security professionals must think outside the box when it comes to securing traditional data center platforms and the workloads that they support. With that in mind, let’s look at three healthcare data center use-cases and where security plays a direct role.
Application delivery
It used to be easy to define what an “app” was. Now, there are a number of new applications being delivered through a number of different means. You can have traditional applications being delivered from a single server platform, or you could be virtualizing your entire management platform like EPIC on Citrix. Regardless of how you’re pushing down your apps, there are some great ways to secure it all. New, centralized controls will now allow you to deliver a diverse set of applications all from one portal. These can be apps delivered via the web (HTML5), streamed, virtualized and pushed down with a client, and they can even be local to the data center. The idea is to point all of these applications into a controlled portal. Allow users to access all of their applications from one spot and then secure their entry methodology. This allows you to centralize your applications and always control who is accessing applications, where they’re coming in from, and even the kinds of devices they might be using. Geo-fencing, compliance monitoring, and even security policies can be deployed based on contextual awareness. This allows for greater security and better application flow. Furthermore, this allows you to support more devices and greater amount of content delivery use-cases.
Wired/Wireless Control
Network density will only continue to increase. We’re seeing a large influx of new devices coming into healthcare architectures. Today, your network must act as both a sensor and an enforcer when it comes to health data security. Fortunately, this also means optimizing user experiences and how content is delivered. New kinds of identity engines allow you to dynamically control who is accessing your network and what they’re looking at. Most of all, you can dynamically control user connections all from one centralized location. Network operations can be a powerful tool for both security and user awareness. For example, if a user is accessing an application and they leave a facility, you can set a policy that a VPN is automatically created when the switch from a secure wireless connection to a cellular link. The cool part is that this is all done seamlessly, and allows the user to be continuously productive. Furthermore, new wireless controls allow you to catch rogue devices, mal-formed packets, and even anomalous traffic that might be flowing through your network. All of this helps you control the threat continuum and still allow the user to be productive.
Storage and data management (on premise and in the cloud)
The ways that healthcare organizations manage their data has changed pretty dramatically. The cause has been the digitization of the healthcare industry. Originally, there were challenges around scaling into the cloud. Now, new changes in HIPAA – like the Omnibus Rule – allow you to upload files into a business associate (BA) cloud architecture while still remaining compliant. New data management solutions allow you to always own the keys to your kingdom and continuously control the entire data tokenization process. When working with storage and data solutions, don’t be afraid to look at the cloud for options. From a security perspective, you still retain control of how the data flows, where it’s stored, and how it has access. However, you can now scale some of this information into a cloud ecosystem. Not only can this be a secure architecture, this also helps offset costs around data storage.
New use-cases are always emerging within the healthcare field. Soon, IoT and more interconnected devices will redefine healthcare operations and even patient care. All of this will need to be controlled as new applications are delivered with richer content, more network density takes place, and even more information is passed through the data center. When it comes to securing your new kinds of workloads, don’t be afraid to get creative and test out new solutions. New capabilities around environment segregation allows you to create powerful sandboxes and containerized ecosystems to test out new solutions. Take advantage of virtual systems and data center multi-tenancy when testing out new kinds of health data security platforms. This will help keep your healthcare security architecture agile and ahead of the curve.
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