A growing trend in cybersecurity is the rising number of threat actors that can bypass detection tools without triggering them. Jerry Robinson, Director of Information Security at Hattiesburg Clinic shared that even though there were quite a few security tools at their disposal, threat actors were continuously developing ways to circumvent these tools.
Robinson had already been taking a high-level look at the idea of implementing Zero Trust into his security strategy prior to being introduced to ThreatLocker at a tradeshow. After watching a live demonstration of the ThreatLocker Zero Trust platform, he became excited by what it could do and put ThreatLocker on his radar for the following fiscal year.
Out of the approximately 2,000 professional staff at Hattiesburg Clinic, the information security department has roughly 30 employees or just under 1.5% of Hattiesburg's total workforce. Regardless of the size of an organization's information security department, preventing shadow IT and successful phishing attacks is a challenge. Educating users is critical to a successful cybersecurity strategy. However, as Hattiesburg Clinic discovered, you must rely on something other than employee cybersecurity awareness training to protect your organization from phishing attacks, end users installing malicious software, and data breaches caused by unauthorized USB drives.
After implementing ThreatLocker, Robinson stopped end users from installing random programs. Employees must now request any new software and justify its business necessity before the IT Department approves or rejects it. Robinson contributed, “Since you never know what a piece of software is going to do to your computer, being able to control what gets installed is priceless.”
Robinson shared that his search for a Zero Trust solution lasted about five months prior to discovering ThreatLocker. During that period, Robinson tried other vendors but was dissatisfied by the fact that they made rolling out their product more difficult by requiring Hattiesburg Clinic to document everything they were doing.
As Robinson’s information security team became more comfortable with using ThreatLocker, they no longer needed the help of the Cyber Hero Support Team as much as they did initially. However, when they did need support, the Cyber Hero Support Team was always available.
The idea of falling victim to a cyberattack, specifically ransomware, can be nerve-racking. Nonetheless, when discussing how he personally measures success, as opposed to using metrics or KPIs, Robinson claims “The measurement for me is my level of comfort and ability to sleep at night.”
Hattiesburg Clinic’s goal moving forward is to expand into other markets where there are inadequate healthcare services available to those that need them. The role of ThreatLocker in ensuring the success of this plan is by protecting Hattiesburg Clinic, and the data of their employees, partners, and most importantly, their patients. Robinson believes that Threatlocker is what brings his cybersecurity strategy together, making this goal possible by removing an obstacle as intimidating as cyberattacks.
ThreatLocker gives Hattiesburg the ability to secure the data of everyone in their systems with granular Zero Trust controls. By implementing ThreatLocker default deny policies, or only allowing what is needed and blocking everything else, Hattiesburg Clinic can pursue their business development free from the influence of cybercriminals and the damage their malicious plans cause.
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While we never had a ransomware event, or a breach that we know of, we were plagued with malware constantly; and the tools that we had were great at alerting us after the fact, but what I wanted was something that would be more preventive in nature. So, that’s when we began to look at Zero Trust.
