While the security features protecting Cisco collaboration solutions are second to none, every collaboration customer has different security requirements based on their industry. The next chapters explore three of Cisco’s sector-specific collaboration solutions and how they are protected.
Telehealth is the remote engagement and exchange of information between patients and care providers using some sort of technology, often including video. Why is telehealth (also called telemedicine, ehealth, or virtual health) predicted to explode? Because of looming physician shortages and higher patient service expectations. Also, the shift from volume-based to value-based reimbursement creates a greater sense of urgency to reduce costs and maximize operational efficiency. Telehealth programs solve for all of these concerns.
Collaborative telehealth experiences, while exciting and certain to grow in number, require protection. And beyond telehealth, to do their jobs and expedite patient care, healthcare workers have to share sensitive patient data. They need to do this quickly and easily without exposing that data to breaches.
Healthcare providers are obligated by law to comply with an array of ever-shifting regulations surrounding patient privacy, such as HIPAA. The penalties for violations can be steep.
1 HIPAA Settlements: Three Boston Hospitals pay $1M in fines for “Boston Trauma” filming. Healthcare-Informatics.com. September 2018.
On top of that, data breaches, stolen medical records, insurance fraud, and ransomware negatively influence a healthcare facility's standing in the community. When patients perceive less-than-optimal protection of their privacy by care providers, some of them vote with their feet and opt to seek care elsewhere.
With so many vulnerable endpoints at healthcare facilities—BYODs, apps, medical devices—attackers view them as easy targets. And, because it takes practitioners twice the time to perform admin tasks manually when network-connected digital systems are shut down by ransomware attacks, unplanned downtime at healthcare facilities may cost an average of $7,900 per minute.2
2 SOURCE: The rise of ransomware in healthcare. csoonline.com. July 2018.
Administrative control over role-based access, PIN locked login authentication, forced log out in case someone forgets, remote wiping of data from devices, integrations with DLPs and CASBs—Webex solutions are HIPAA compliant.
The E2E encryption (in use, in transit, at rest, and within features like search) built into Webex Meetings and Webex Teams protects patients, providers, and facilities by shrinking the attack surface to a minimum, across endpoints and on-premise or virtual servers—that provides added peace of mind for everyone.
Innovations like telehealth are only as promising and effective as the security that protects it. That’s why telehealth programs supported by Cisco cloud collaboration solutions offer the most trusted security available.
Engineers and technicians design something new and disruptive—and get the green light to bring it to market. Next, suppliers are brought into the conversation, then tooling vendors, then processes are tested for proof of concept, efficiencies, and safety. If this sounds like a process driven by web conferencing and ongoing virtual teamwork, you would be right: From idea to blueprint to prototype to finished product to sales, inputs from teams all over the world are required and access to expertise is crucial.
Production is nearly always a time-sensitive undertaking—customers expect their goods based on precisely determined timelines. If a problem occurs on the factory floor, maintenance teams have to bring together a community of people to solve what can be a mission-critical issue. Formerly, this could mean flying people in to the plant, having meetings, and speculating about what’s actually going wrong.
But today, using Cisco Webex and wireless infrastructure delivered on handheld devices, maintenance teams can quickly call remote experts located anywhere in the world, make them virtually available, and resolve issues where they occur, on the factory floor.
Their collaboration experiences include voice, web conferencing, video, augmented reality, chat, and application/file sharing—and a high resolution industrial camera often becomes a participant in the conversation.
How can manufacturers add a layer of security to the product development process? By, for instance, segmenting critical, confidential assets within networks, wireless access points, and hybrid cloud-based services to isolate and protect them. Segmentation allows teams to play their roles with defined security policies while preventing them from accessing assets they don’t need. Cisco builds segmentation into collaboration.
In the case of equipment repair on the factory floor, Cisco Security Connector deployed through mobile device management protects supervised devices. Through greater visibility, it helps to ensure the policy and procedure compliance and authorized identity of mobile users and their enterprise-owned devices. And with added controls, it protects device users from connecting to malicious sites on corporate and cellular networks, or on public Wi-Fi.
This is the reality of cyber-attacks and theft by or from insiders: If your collaboration solutions can’t authenticate users and verify device compliance, your confidential information and intellectual property could be exposed.
Investment decisions are inherently risky. As such, they are taken very seriously. When financial services companies bring human capital together from far flung locations to expertly analyze potential investments during Cisco Webex-hosted meetings, the outlooks expressed constitute intellectual property.
Importantly, those expert viewpoints and the decisions they influence rely on confidentiality for value, for instance, in the case of timing a stock market play, or outmaneuvering rivals in a merger or acquisition. In terms of time frames, collaboration is also critical in bringing parties together to close and sell in lending markets as deadlines loom.
Government agencies and other financial industry watchdogs erect an “ethical wall” to keep confidential information out of the hands of those who would illegally profit by jumping ahead of trades based on improper access to propriety knowledge that doesn’t belong to them.
One such agency at the federal level is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Here is what they state in their FDIC Information Technology Strategic Plan: 2017 - 2020:
Will the FDIC shift to more cloud-based services for collaboration? If they do, Cisco is ready.
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) processes are designed to assist Federal government agencies in meeting Federal Information Security Management (FISMA) requirements for cloud systems. Cisco Webex Meetings FedRAMP-Authorized provides strong, risk-based security that meets those stringent standards—an extra level of trust.
Online banking is an example of collaboration helping fulfill customer needs and demands. Online banking is open 24 hours and it eliminates the need to transfer funds, make deposits, pay bills, research financial products, and maintain records in-person or on actual paper. Beyond convenient online banking, meetings with bankers and advisors are encompassing ever more complicated financial consultations at video-enabled, stand-alone kiosks and ATMs. And, as the IoT phenomenon continues to grow, bank-client interactions will increase further.
Cisco Connected Mobile Experience (CMX) lets bankers detect, connect, and engage with customers through their mobile devices when they are in a branch. That means bankers can greet VIP customers by name and offer immediate assistance, tell customers which lines have the shortest wait times, and promote new services. CMX adds another layer of security as well, by being able to identify the presence of mobile devices within a branch when the branch is closed. CMX sends alerts to bank security teams for further action.
In both the financial analyst web conferencing and virtual teller cases, E2E encryption is vital. That includes encryption that reduces the attack surface:
Multiple layers of security. That’s what it takes to protect the competitive advantage that human capital can offer—and the trust of clients in branches, online, at kiosks, ATMs, and mobile phones on the go.
