“Australian businesses face increasingly sophisticated and capable cybercriminals targeting what matters most to them; their money, data and reputation. Bank accounts, email systems and business devices, including computers and mobiles, are just a few of the critical business assets that face compromise.”
Medical practices in Australia are increasingly reliant on technology to store and share patient information. This reliance has made them a target for cybercriminals, who have attempted to access patient data through malware and ransomware attacks. Cyber security is therefore an important consideration for any medical practice, in order to protect the confidentiality of patient information.
The criticality of services delivered by the health sector is of high importance and any disruption of service could be catastrophic. Therefore, more the reason for medical practices to adopt sound security solutions to keep themselves always online and protected.
Covid-19 has further changed the landscape of the medical industry. Patients have increased the use of telehealth facilities, which require a stable and secure connection. Any vulnerabilities, in the network, could be utilized by a potential attacker. Changes to social and working environments, such as working from home, have made the public vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Malware downloaded from malicious emails or websites is the most common type of security incident that medical practices are experiencing. Many medical practices are seeing a wide variety of other attacks, as well, including:
We recommend Six (6) security capabilities for Healthcare and medical practices to deal with the ever-expanding threat landscape:
Your healthcare business or practice has access to valuable digital information entrusted to you by healthcare consumers, suppliers and employees. The information and systems your organisation uses to access and store this information are critical to its ability to operate.
If criminals compromise your computer systems or steal important patient information, there is a huge risk that your business may suffer significant financial loss, possible legal liability, and reputational damage and your customers’ personal information may be misused for fraudulent purposes. Some cyber attacks may cause you to lose access to critical business systems or can put your business offline. Medical practices would be held responsible in such cases and the repercussions could be too much to handle.
Here we talk about one such tool that can help medical practices keep their patient data secure and protected 24/7.
Strict privacy laws bind medical practices in Australia. As a result, it’s recommended for doctors and other healthcare professionals to use a Secure Web Gateway(SWG) when accessing confidential patient information. By using an SWG, medical practices can ensure that sensitive patient data is protected from unauthorized access.
In this blog, we’ll explore how an SWG can help medical practices in Australia protect patient data. We’ll discuss the importance of cyber security for medical practices and the benefits of using an SWG.
In this blog, we’ll explore how an SWG can help medical practices in Australia protect patient data. We’ll discuss the importance of cyber security for medical practices and the benefits of using an SWG.
Medical practices handle confidential patient information on a daily basis. This information includes things like medical records, prescriptions, and test results. In order to protect this sensitive data, medical practices must have strong cyber security measures in place.
An SWG is a tool that provides security for internet traffic. It acts as a barrier between a company’s network and the internet, filters out malicious traffic, protects against threats and secures sensitive data.
There are many benefits to using a secure web gateway for medical practices. First, it can help to prevent data breaches. If confidential patient information is stolen, it could be used for identity theft or other fraud. A secure web gateway can also help to protect against malware and other threats. By blocking malicious traffic, a secure web gateway can help to keep computers and devices used by medical staff safe from infection, and threats and also prevent data breaches.
SWG protects doctors’ internet-connected devices from internet-born threats. When a doctor accesses the internet, the secure connection goes through a user device to a secured cloud gateway to all public clouds, private clouds, consumer apps or any data centre. The connection is end-to-end encrypted and secured.
A secure web gateway is an important part of any medical practice’s cyber security strategy. By using a secure web gateway, medical practices can protect patient data from unauthorized access and keep their computers and devices safe from malware and other threats.
In this blog, we explored how a secure web gateway can help medical practices in Australia protect patient data. We discussed the importance of cyber security for medical practices and the benefits of using a secure web gateway. Finally, we provided some tips on how to choose the right secure web gateway solution for your medical practice. Secure Web Gateway solution is the best choice for medical practices looking to improve their cyber security strategy. It offers protection against data breaches, malware, and other threats. It is also easy to use and manage, and it fits within your budget.
A stable and reliable Internet connection is absolutely crucial for small and medium Australian businesses to operate successfully. Poor broadband connections can hinder business productivity and growth. The growing threat of cyber attacks is another concern that has SMBs scouring for solutions to secure their business.
· The business going down when the NBN goes down.
· Poor Internet connectivity and performance
· Poor and unsecure Wi-Fi connectivity
· Lack of protection from cyber threats, viruses and malware
· Not being able to work from home
· Poor application performance
1. Lack of an all-in-one IT solution for SMBs– While, there are solutions out there that can resolve the above problems individually, there is no one solution that take care of them all.
2. Capable solutions are expensive- all-in-one solutions exist and that is what multi-billion-dollar enterprises use to secure their business. However, due to the earth-shattering cost, they remain out of reach for small and medium businesses.
3. Service providers do not cater to the SMB market- most small and medium business owners in Australia would like to switch to a solution that can resolve their IT needs, but then they have very few options when it comes to who they can approach to resolve their needs. This is because almost all IT service providers are looking at serving the big businesses rather than SMBs.
Our solution is an all-in-one solution that is designed to alleviate some of the most pressing IT issues that small and medium businesses face in today’s fast-changing world. Using our solution small and medium businesses should experience:
1. Uninterrupted Internet connectivity- 4G Internet backup for your NBN when it goes down, so that your business is always online.
2. Secure and uninterrupted Wi-Fi connected so that you are always connected.
3. Powerful cybersecurity to secure your critical customer and personal data against cyber threats, viruses and malware.
4. Secure and uninterrupted work from anywhere connectivity for remote work needs.
5. Prioritise your business-critical applications over non-critical ones so that your business optimally performs day-in day-out.
Small and medium businesses across Australia have been hit by cyber attacks in the last few years and this is a serious cause of concern for the country as a whole.
In Australia, small and medium businesses account for 97.4% of the entire Australian economy and they together generate $418 billion every year. This is what is at stake here, and providing comprehensive cyber-security to this 97.4% has become more important than ever before.
We have come up with a comprehensive Cyber Security solution for SMBs that will resolve the above issues and do much more without burning a hole in your bank!
Source 1- https://www.asbfeo.gov.au/sites/default/files/ASBFEO Small Business Counts Dec 2020 v2.pdf
Source 2- https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blog/australia-the-small-business-nation-2/
Organizations across Australia have been using technologies such as DMVPN and MPLS to run their enterprise networks. So, what exactly are DMVPN and MPLS and why are they becoming unpopular nowadays?
Well, DMVPN is a routing protocol that can be used to build an overlay fabric between two enterprise sites without statically configuring devices. A DMVPN setup is a hub and spoke setup where the spokes can communicate with each other without going through the hub. In a DMVPN setup, the overlay is achieved using persistent tunnels (site to hub) and dynamic (site to site) tunnels. IPsec is used for encryption which makes DMVPN a popular choice for connecting enterprise sites using internet connections. It is a great alternative to dedicated MPLS connections, which can cost a lot of money. Here are a few advantages of DMVPN:
Advantages of DMVPN
· Enables secure on-demand direct communication path while reducing network configuration complexity when creating a full-meshed network.
· Uses cheap internet circuits to build connectivity, unlike MPLS which is expensive dedicated leased lines.
Disadvantages of DMVPN
· Cannot offer low-latency and high-performance network path for real-time business applications.
· Creating and managing a DMVPN configuration is not easy and requires certain skillsets.
MPLS is a private dedicated connection used to link datacentres and branch offices. ISPs typically provide MPLS circuits and they guarantee network performance, quality, and availability, but all that comes at a COST. Backhauling cloud-destined traffic to branch for firewalling, over bandwidth-constrained circuits, result in added cost, poor user experience and affect business productivity.
SD-WAN is a technology that has evolved over the years to mature into one that can overcome many of the disadvantages of technologies such as MPLS and DMVPN. SD-WAN offers more than just secure network connectivity. SD-WAN combines many network functions and benefits into a single solution while offering a great alternative to MPLS. All vendors out there are currently offering SD-WAN and each solution differs from the other in terms of how integrated they are in terms of meeting customer needs.
SD-WAN, at the end of the day, is focused on maximizing network performance. Companies across Australia, who run real-time applications have started looking at SD-WAN as a great alternative to expensive and complex solutions such as MPLS and DMVPN. For DMVPN to provide the same functionality, it required additional licenses and added network configuration complexity.
SD-WAN provides your business with all the benefits of DMVPN, plus a lot more in a single package. If you would like to consider choosing SD-WAN over DMVPN and MPLS, here are some compelling reasons:
1. You can use the internet as your new WAN and replace expensive MPLS circuits. So, lower OPEX and CAPEX.
2. SD-WAN can offer lower-latency and high-performance network paths for real-time applications such as VoIP.
3. Secure breakout for your SaaS applications from the branch, thereby eliminates backhauling and saves you money.
4. Implementing network changes or pushing security policies on SD-WAN is simple. A few clicks are all it takes!!
5. Scaling your network (adding a new site) is easy and can be done without hassle. (Thanks to Zero Touch Provisioning)
6. Traffic steering for business-critical applications can be done to provide better application performance. Eg, your Zoom traffic can always be given precedence over YouTube traffic, thereby enabling more productivity.
7. Visibility across the entire network lets you know how your network is performing. The ability to configure, manage and troubleshoot your network can be done from a single dashboard.
8. Provides business continuity using LTE or broadband, so that your business is up and running 24/7. Do not worry about unstable NBN connections, as your business can seamlessly failover to an LTE connection when your NBN goes down.
9. SD-WAN delivers better performance by prioritizing latency-sensitive traffic using traffic-shaping, application recognition, load-balancing, and prioritization. This can be done as per business requirements.
10. A fully integrated Secure SD-WAN solution, when integrated into the SASE framework, can support secure remote work in today’s times. This is what most organizations are desperately looking for.
The right SD-WAN solution can enable business transformation for your organization. The rate of adoption of SD-WAN has gone up in the last few months, due to the pandemic, cloud adoption, and added complexity from legacy infrastructure. So, if you would like to achieve greater business productivity and better application performance, without denting the bottom line, then SD-WAN is the right solution for your business.