NHS Primary Care Trust rolls out Sophos NAC
IT security and control firm Sophos today announced that Great
Yarmouth and Waveney NHS Primary Care Trust (PCT) in East Anglia
has deployed Sophos
NAC Advanced to defend against the risks of unknown PCs trying
to access the network. In addition, Great Yarmouth and Waveney NHS'
new NAC (Network Access Control) solution enables the Trust to
ensure that all of its own PCs and laptops are up to date with
security patches and anti-virus protection, as well as setting
appropriate access levels dependent on the employee. The solution
was provided by Sophos Platinum Partner, Foursys.
Great Yarmouth and Waveney NHS Primary Care Trust serves a
population of more than 200,000. Given the rise in remote working
and guests, including both contractors and patients, wishing to
connect to the Trust's network either for work purposes or simply
for browsing the web, Great Yarmouth and Waveney NHS needed a
solution that would enable it to control this access and ensure
that every device met a baseline of IT policies. After performing a
risk assessment, the Trust decided that a NAC solution was the best
fit for its needs.
The PCT consulted with Foursys, which provided presentations and
demonstrations of Sophos NAC Advanced. Following this, it was clear
to the Trust that the Sophos solution met all its requirements for
a defence in depth model, providing a mechanism to simply control
endpoint health and activity across the entire, physically
dispersed network. Foursys deployed Sophos NAC Advanced throughout
the PCT's headquarters and to all PCs on the corporate network. The
Trust can now enforce its security policies on both its own and
guest PCs and devices.
For example, all devices must now meet a minimum security
standard before being allowed access, and in order to protect its
data still further, the Trust has set controls over which systems,
if any, each employee and guest is authorised to access.
"With so many Wi-Fi enabled devices around today, many
organisations are finding it difficult to effectively control who
and what is accessing their network," said Jonathan Hughes, VP
Sophos UK. "Banning access outright risks negatively impacting
productivity - many employees use their own hardware when working
remotely, while visiting contractors or partners would be unable to
use the internet and find the information they need. With NAC,
Great Yarmouth and Waveney NHS Trust now has a flexible, yet
secure, approach to managing its network, users and data."
Using Sophos NAC Advanced's flexible and phased deployment, the
installation was successfully completed with no impact to
end-users. The solution now monitors the status of anti-virus
software, ensures patches and service packs are up to date on all
machines and the firewall turned on. Any machines that deviate from
this policy, whether they belong to the Trust, a member of staff or
a guest, are isolated from the network and remediated to reduce any
potential risk. Unknown devices seeking access are authenticated
with a guest login, assessed to ensure they pose no threat, and are
then provided with filtered access to the internet and prevented
from accessing internal systems.
"Since implementing Sophos NAC Advanced, it has brought
confidence and we now know that all endpoints are complying with
our defined baseline policies," said Andrew Brinded, IT services
engineer for the PCT. "Another key factor is that we also have the
ability to ensure that an issue is immediately resolved. It gives
us the ability to say: If you don't comply with our policies, you
get placed in a bubble and can only talk to a subset of the devices
on the network".
The Trust was so impressed with the immediate benefits delivered
by Sophos NAC Advanced that is now has plans to roll it out across
its GP and community sites - more than 50 sites in total. This next
stage of the deployment will also include the installation of
Utimaco
SafeGuard.
"For healthcare organisations like Great Yarmouth and Waveney
NHS Primary Care Trust, it's essential that their networks are
fully defended against any potential risk," said Stuart Wright,
senior network access consultant at Foursys. "For these high risk
projects, the customer needs to be confident that they're
partnering with a company that is not only knowledgeable, but that
will also take every precaution to minimise the risk."
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.