Three ways for healthcare CISOs to modernize security

When I start a new relationship with a CISO, I try to impress upon them the importance of their role, whether that role is at a hospital, payment processor, research organization or a pharmaceutical manufacturer. Impress upon the IT and networking staff that it’s better for everyone if the organization moves away from legacy infrastructure and embraces tools that can provide visibility and enhanced communications across the enterprise. Get them excited to learn new technologies that can add convenience to their work lives while improving visibility across the organization, putting the team in a stronger position to identify, respond to and prevent future cyber incidents. CISOs have to run the same kind of risk calculations on security technologies. What I tell CISOs is to assess the risk. A CISO’s job is to run a risk analysis and decide if maintaining the status quo makes sense versus moving the organization forward and innovating with new technologies that will make the staff more productive and secure in the long run. CISOs at healthcare organizations need to take advantage of these shifts and show top management that it’s imperative to invest and modernize. Cloud technologies offer enhanced security because all their applications are automatically updated regularly and Microsoft Azure for healthcare offers a “single version of the truth” where all the technology departments now have visibility into network traffic. When CISOs are looking to roll out new technologies, I tell them to first focus on identity and authentication.