Mike Tolido | Head of Channel Management, Data Security for Switzerland
Analysts from Statista are projecting that the Healthcare market in Switzerland will need to invest 1.3 billion Swiss Franks in cybersecurity and IT by 2027. The whole sector, according to the findings of the Boston Consulting group, is growing in quality and quantity. The costs of the healthcare system in Switzerland have increased to 80 percent compared to the past 20 years. The same group of consultants are also predicting that the costs will double by 2040.
Threats & regulations pushing security in Swiss healthcare
According to the half year report of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), the number of reported cyberattacks has increased to 34527 for. Cybercriminals have already targeted various Swiss hospitals and their suppliers, and this trend is likely to continue.
Laws and regulations regarding personal data are especially strict in the healthcare sector – for obvious and justifiable reasons. Healthcare providers who are looking to modernize their businesses as well as improve end customer service need an experienced partner to enter into the cloud space. In fact, a new data protection law, the “Neues DSG” goes into effect September 2023 in Switzerland.. This new law calls for even stricter regulation for personal data. However, at the same time, this data also needs to be accessed and processed much faster given the ongoing development of the digital world. Medical data is expected to be on available on demand from anywhere at any time so that patients can benefit from convenient, effective care.
Thales has market leading knowledge and experience on the threats and challenges encountered by organisations with both cloud and on-premises environments. Thales and Hint AG have extended their collaboration to support the healthcare sector in Switzerland to help secure the privacy of their patients with strong data security controls. Hint AG, a leading ICT services provider that specializes explicitly in the Swiss healthcare sector, will be focusing on offering Thales solutions for Data Security such as Thales’ Luna Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), Data Protection on Demand and the CipherTrust Data Security Platform, including central key management.
Hint AG is very familiar with the challenges and specifics of healthcare providers and understands the specific requirements for a robust ICT base infrastructure. At the heart of the company’s service delivery is the sophisticated Service Management Tool Framework, which serves as the foundation for the support and operations processes. Through this framework, customers benefit from comprehensive service management that offers a wide range of evaluation options for key KPIs in their ICT landscape.
Securing Data anywhere and everywhere
The Central Key Management based on Thales’ CipherTrust Data Security Platform that the Hint AG provides, offers healthcare organizations a centralized management console for Monitoring and reporting, Data discovery and classification as well as Data protection techniques such as transparent encryption for files, databases and big data and Centralized enterprise key management.
With the Thales CipherTrust Data Security Platform businesses can:
- Discover, protect and control sensitive data anywhere with next-generation unified data protection.
- Achieve consistent security and compliance – of heightened importance in the medical field – across physical, virtual, and cloud environments.
- Identify and secure data across structured, unstructured and big data platforms.
- Reduce time-to-value. Rapidly enable platform capabilities as needed.
- Rely on Hardware Security Modules as the secure root of trust for the platform include FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certification.
- Ehance data security – patients want to be sure their sensitive medical data is securely stored.
The centralized key management solution allows consolidation of on-premises and cloud encryption keys across multiple applications, data stores, and appliances. It enables healthcare organizations to reduce business risk with data discovery, classification, and protection of sensitive data. The goal is to simplify the management with a self-service licensing portal and visibility into licenses available and in use.
In terms of Cloud, it allows Cloud-deployment options with support for Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, VMware, Oracle Cloud, OpenStack and many more. With the Hardware Security Module (HSM) integrations it supports key control and generation. Also, an extensible microservices architecture enables maintenance and upgrades without downtime. Additionally healthcare organizations can benefit from an extensive partner ecosystem including integrations with leading enterprise storage, server, database, application, and cloud vendors.
The Hint AG and Thales collaboration offer a strong local presence in Switzerland with extensive knowledge of the Swiss IT environment, as HINT has optimally aligned itself with the Swiss healthcare sector and is creating a secure environment for healthcare organizations. Together they provide a one-stop-shop offering a broad and flexible Managed Services portfolio for any type of medical institution.
Says Hint AG CEO Markus Goldschmid: "Our key management for Swiss healthcare is based on a strong partnership with Thales. By keeping control of the keys in the hands of Swiss healthcare institutions, we ensure the integrity and confidentiality of this sensitive data in the cloud."
The healthcare market is full of very specific and demanding requirements when it comes to data security and cloud solutions. Hospitals, care facilities etc. are dealing with extremely important and sensitive data day and day out, but they also have a vital interest in modernizing their business processes and data models. The Swiss healthcare sector can rely on Thales and Hint AG to provide them with a secure and efficient environment to ultimately improve the care for and health of their patients.
Adds Pius Graf, Thales CPL Director Switzerland: "With HINT AG and Thales, technological expertise in healthcare and data security combine to form a strategic partnership, for the protection of customer data in the cloud and in Switzerland."