Case Study - Bethesda

Customer’s Profile

In addition to constantly improving ransomware and the increasing number of hacking attacks, GDPR presents yet another big challenge to the IT professionals of companies and institutions. Bethesda was looking for a security solution that provides an effective response to all challenges.

Situation

Bethesda is the only church-financed children’s hospital in the Central European region caring for patients ranging from newborns to 18 years of age. The hospital participates in Budapest’s children emergency system, covering the northeastern areas of the Pest side, but young patients come from Pest County and other parts of Hungary. Bethesda hosts the National Center for the Care of Children with Burns and the Budapest-Bethel Epilepsy Center, which also has a nationwide coverage for children with epilepsy for pre-surgery examination. Doctors and nurses work in two sites, with 12 treatment and two diagnostic departments in the departments’outpatient centers. The 170-bed facility provides care for nearly 12,000 children a year on average, while up to 150,000 minors are treated in the outpatient centers.

Challenges

Recently there have been a number of high-profile security incidents around the world that involved medical facilities. As health data is extremely valuable on the black market, the number of attacks will likely increase in the future. The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also presented the hospital with a serious challenge in 2018.“ It is not just about external dangers,”says CIO Márton Fejes.“ If IT security is inadequate, if there is any human error, data can be easily misplaced.” From the GDPR’s point of view, it is already a data incident and results in a serious penalty if the hospital sends an email containing health or personal data to an incorrect address. In terms of the GDPR, the biggest challenge for the institution is to know about the incident and report it to the National Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority (NAIH), otherwise the head of the institution is personally responsible for the error.

The right endpoint security system, password protection, and well-managed user permissions all play a central role in the process. Training doctors, nurses and hospital administrative staff on cybersecurity also presents a challenge. All these tasks must be addressed within the well-known scarce financial resources of the Hungarian health system.

Solution

Bethesda was looking for an IT security system that provides endpoint protection against unknown attacks while not affecting the day-to-day work of end users. The 30-day trial period proved that Panda Adaptive Defense 360 works equally well in device management, filtering and email protection. Among the millions of emails arriving at the hospital every day, you are sure to find some spam or viral messages that staff open either by accident or out of curiosity.

Panda’s security solution perfectly identified this threat as well. Fejes also stressed the tasks related to deployment and operation in the midst of a constant shortage of specialists, as well as the Hungarian language product support as a key factor. The Systems Management Remote Monitoring System and Adaptive Defense 360 can be deployed in less than two days, they are easy to implement into any system, and the solution’s operation requires no additional resources. During the introductory period, the Panda staff answered all questions within a short period of time and the problems were handled in a flexible manner.

“The cooperation between Panda and the hospital has been excellent from the very first moment,” says the CIO, adding that the best security programs remain invisible to users. Panda’s solution is exactly like that. The hospital’s IT professionals monitor and control Panda Adaptive Defense 360 functions on a simple, transparent central dashboard, and the doctors use their computers just as they did before the program was introduced in 2018. “In addition, the pricing of the security solution was also a key consideration for the hospital. Panda’s special offering to medical institutions also met this expectation perfectly,”adds Fejes.

 

Benefits of Panda Adaptive Defense 360

  • EDR technology with complete protection against zero day attacks
  • Forensic Information
  • Close technical support by qualified technicians
  • Full EPP capabilities
  • Web filtering and web access monitoring and control

Benefits of Panda Systems Management

  • 100% Cloud-based solution
  • Lightweight agent
  • Centralized monitoring
  • Manage smartphones and tablets
  • Centralized software deployment