A few months back I sat down over coffee with Dan Nutkis, the CEO of health information trust alliance HITRUST. The topic for discussion? How to tackle the massive and growing cyber threat facing our most vulnerable healthcare organizations, from the ground up.
There and then I pledged Trend Micro’s 100% support, and that discussion lead to HITRUST’s creation of the new CyberAid program. And I promised that with our new Cloud Edge offering we’d lead from the front to get highly usable, effective and cost efficient security tools into the hands of physician practices all over the United States.
The weakest link
We discussed an important problem facing the healthcare industry: while bigger organizations get the major headlines when breached, it’s the smaller players that are the weakest link. They simply don’t have the cybersecurity skills, resources or capabilities to address what is a growing threat.
A Ponemon Institute report claimed 79% of healthcare organizations suffered two or more data breaches in the past two years, costing in excess of $6 billion. The bad guys want the best RoI possible for their attacks. That means going after the weakest targets, and those storing the most valuable data. Small healthcare firms like physician practices fit the bill on both counts. They’re also increasingly at risk from ransomware, because they’re seen as an easy target which has a lot to lose by not paying up.
CyberAid to the rescue
Dan asked me that day why security products companies aren’t doing more to help these smaller players out. Well, CyberAid is the answer: a program which identifies the best and most cost effective cybersecurity tools on the market and then helps install and train staff to manage them. This is what Trend Micro is all about, making the world a safer place in which to exchange digital information.
There was also no doubt in my mind we had the right products for this program: Cloud Edge and Worry-Free Services.
It’s a new offering that has seen fantastic success already in Japan in providing smaller organizations with enterprise-class cybersecurity capabilities. Cloud Edge is a hybrid solution that is deployed as an appliance on premise and managed through the cloud for greater efficiency. It features a comprehensive set of capabilities including URL filtering, bandwidth control, intrusion protection, anti-malware scanning, web reputation, and app control to protect against ransomware, data breaches and other threats.
The emphasis throughout is on performance, ease of use and management. And crucially, it doesn’t slow down the network when implemented at scale. As part of CyberAid Cloud Edge also comes bundled with our market-leading Worry-Free endpoint solution for SMEs, to provide even more comprehensive protection for small healthcare organizations.
All credit to Children’s Health, one of the largest pediatric healthcare providers in the US, which has stepped up to begin the CyberAid roll-out. I look forward to seeing many more follow suit going forward.
I’m delighted and proud at what we’ve achieved since Dan and I sat down in Starbucks that day. Who knew coffee could be so good for the nation’s cyber health?
