IoT security company Forescout has entered a strategic partnership with Medigate, a medical-device security and asset-management company, to help healthcare organizations continuously discover, identify, assess and secure all Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), IoT, operational technology (OT) and IT network connected devices.

Through this new collaboration, the companies have developed an integration to bring together Medigate's in-depth IoMT visibility, anomaly detection and lifecycle-management capabilities with Forescout’s enterprise-device visibility, automated segmentation and incident-response capabilities. Forescout will also resell the Medigate Platform.

WHY IT MATTERS

The joint offering will utilize passive technologies to identify and classify all connected medical devices and IT assets on health delivery organization networks, including unknown and hard-to-classify devices, while minimizing disruption. It will provide valuable insights to support corporate security policies to protect biomedical devices through effective vulnerability management, anomaly and threat detection, and risk scoring. 

Through this partnership, healthcare customers will be able to design and implement effective segmentation and control access to the clinical network.   
 
THE LARGER TREND 

Last December, Medigate also partnered with EHR/EMR provider Cerner, which will provide hospitals more in-depth visibility, with continuous monitoring of network activity to create a detailed inventory of connected devices, HealthcareITNews reported. 

Microsegmentation is one way to manage hard-to-secure connected medical devices through the creation of small, restricted segments of network. There are tools to help automate that process, said Jonathan Langer, co-founder and CEO, Medigate in an interview with HealthcareITNews in November 2019.  

ON THE RECORD

“Connected medical devices represent a fast-growing threat attack vector and the lack of device manufacturer standardization and interoperability has created a significant problem for clinical care network operations,” said Pedro Abreu, Chief Product and Strategy Officer of Forescout, in statement.

“The combination of Medigate’s deep knowledge of medical devices and the healthcare industry with Forescout’s breadth of device intelligence adds a new level of cohesive device insight, expertise and security for the healthcare industry.”

Langer said: “The Medigate and Forescout partnership and integration provide healthcare organizations with rich contextual visibility into their IT and clinical networks, as well as sophisticated network analysis to detect threats and implement clinically-driven policies. These actionable insights will, in turn, reduce risk and improve patient safety.”