BYOD policies must be part of healthcare network security

A greater volume of personal device usage has forced healthcare organizations to take a long look at their network security approach, according to an article on the Health IT Security website.

Wile securing internal user access and preventing outside intrusion, healthcare IT decision makers are beginning to recognize that the idea of having “four walls” is a thing of the past. Instead these administrators have become authenticators that base access on user role, their privileges and the type of data being accessed. And the technologies have evolved as well, the article said.

One increasingly-important part of network access control these days is aligning security measures with BYOD policies. Administrators are now able to control everything on a healthcare network as part of a BYOD control policy. These management platforms can be integrated with network security components such as Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) or Network Delivery Controllers (NDC).

These appliances are able to do device interrogation to ensure that specific security policies are applied, according to the article. Is the user coming in from a rooted device? Does the device have AV? Is the user coming in from a secure connection? What is the geo-location of the device? All of these can be set as rules to either allow or prevent a device from access the network. 

Read the article.