Palo Alto Networks announced Medical IoT Security — the most comprehensive Zero Trust security solution for medical devices — enabling healthcare organisations to deploy and manage new connected technologies quickly and securely.

Zero Trust is a strategic approach to cybersecurity that secures an organisation by eliminating implicit trust by continuously verifying every user and device.

Anand Oswal, senior vice president of products, network security at Palo Alto Networks says the proliferation of connected medical devices in the healthcare industry brings a wealth of benefits, but these devices are often not well secured.

“For example, according to Unit 42, an alarming 75% of smart infusion pumps examined on the networks of hospitals and healthcare organisations had known security gaps,”

“This makes security devices an attractive target for cyberattackers, potentially exposing patient data and ultimately putting patients at risk.” said Oswal.

Implementing a Zero Trust approach to protect medical devices against modern cyber-attacks can be challenging. However, Palo Alto Networks Medical IoT Security offers automated device recognition, context-based segmentation, least privilege policy advice, and one-click policy implementation.

It also offers top-notch threat protection through direct integration with Palo Alto Networks cloud-based security services like Advanced Threat Prevention and Advanced URL Filtering.

Alex Nehmy, Director of Industry 4.0 Strategy at Palo Alto Networks said “There is no doubt that medical IoT devices have the ability to improve medical outcomes for Australians. However, the decentralised deployment of IoT devices in hospitals and the complexity of hospital environments can make them inherently difficult to secure, leaving our medical facilities vulnerable to a cyber attack,”

“There are so many hospitals that may not even know how many connected devices they have, let alone how secure they are.”

“By giving hospitals visibility of their connected devices, with a purpose-built security solution to identify vulnerabilities across the ecosystem, we can protect patient data and ultimately people’s lives.” said Nehmy

The new Palo Alto Networks Medical IoT Security uses machine learning (ML) to enable healthcare organisations to:

• Create device rules with automated security responses: Easily create rules that monitor devices for behavioural anomalies and automatically trigger appropriate responses. For example, if a medical device that typically only sends small amounts of data unexpectedly begins to use a lot of bandwidth, the device can be cut off from the internet and security teams can be alerted.
• Automate Zero Trust policy recommendations and enforcement: Enforce recommended least-privileged access policies for medical devices with one click using Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls or supported network enforcement technologies. This eliminates error-prone and time-consuming manual policy creation and scales easily across a set of devices with the same profile.
• Understand device vulnerabilities and risk posture: Access each medical device’s Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and map them to Common Vulnerability Exposures (CVEs). This mapping helps identify the software libraries used on medical devices and any associated vulnerabilities. Get immediate insights into the risk posture of each device, including end-of-life status, recall notification, default password alert and unauthorised external website communication.
• Improve compliance: Easily understand medical device vulnerabilities, patch status and security settings, and then get recommendations to bring devices into compliance with rules and guidelines, such as the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and similar laws and regulations.
• Verify network segmentation: Visualise the entire map of connected devices and ensure each device is placed in its designated network segment. Proper network segmentation can ensure a device only communicates with authorised systems.
• Simplify operations: Two distinct dashboards allow IT and biomedical engineering teams to each see the information critical to their roles. Integration with existing healthcare information management systems, like AIMS and Epic Systems, help automate workflows.

Healthcare facilities are utilizing Palo Alto Networks items to protect the equipment that provide state-of-the-art treatment to countless numbers of individuals around the globe.

Tony Lakin, CISO, Moffitt Cancer Center says it is essential to have an acute understanding of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) landscape in order to create and maintain a successful enterprise cybersecurity plan.

“The ability to accurately detect, identify and respond to cyber threats is critical to ensuring minimal operational impact to clinical operations during a cyber event.”

“Palo Alto Networks IoT capability seamlessly integrates with our continuous monitoring processes and threat-hunting operations.”

“The platform consistently provides my teams with actionable information to allow them to proactively manage the threat surface of our medical device portfolio,” said Lakin

According to ESG principal analyst Bob Laliberte, with thousands of devices to manage, healthcare environments are extremely complex and require intelligent security solutions capable of doing more.

“Palo Alto Networks understands this requirement and is leveraging machine learning (ML) for Medical IoT security.”

“Adding intelligence will enable providers to improve operational efficiency, which will enhance patient and practitioner experience and alleviate the burden of an ongoing IT skills shortage,” said Laliberte

Ed Lee, research director, IoT and Intelligent Edge Security says protecting patient data and lives requires the capacity to protect essential medical equipment from potential hazards while still allowing them to function properly and establishing clear delineations of responsibility between IT and Biomed engineering teams.

“Healthcare providers continue to be high-value targets for attackers. This reality, combined with the diversity of medical IoT devices and their inherent vulnerabilities, points to a real need for device security that is purpose-built for healthcare use cases,” said Lee