Medilife Health Group Success Story: Towards a Secure and a Healthier Future
Medilife is a renowned private health institution in Istanbul, Türkiye, operating two hospitals and two clinics. Since 2001, it has continuously offered quality health services at affordable prices, overseeing 700,000 examinations, 16,000 surgeries, and 6,000 births annually with its experienced doctors and expert healthcare team. With a vision to revolutionize its IT and security infrastructure, Medilife stands to provide modernized and reliable health services for many years to come.
Medilife Pain Points: Obsolete Endpoint Protection. Insufficient Network Security. Outdated Virtualization Solution
The IT team at Medilife was previously using third-party Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) and antivirus (AV) for security protection. Their antivirus license was due to expire and the firewall license was up for renewal. As a result, they were looking to upgrade both their firewall and endpoint protection or find new solutions entirely.
Additionally, network security was deemed inadequate for the critical nature of the hospital’s operations. This prompted Medilife to further strengthen its security posture by introducing Network Detection and Response (NDR) and Network Access Control (NAC) into its environment.
Last but not least, there were also problems with the traditional virtualization solution they were using, such as poor performance, resource insufficiency, and lack of updates. Therefore, they decided to replace it with a more advanced and secure virtualization solution.
What were Medilife's Requirements from Sangfor Solutions?
Medilife's key requirements were to strengthen its overall security posture and replace the existing virtualization solution.
- The solution for replacing the existing firewall must be:
- User-friendly, easy to manage and configure to shorten the learning curve for the IT team.
- Include a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to protect web servers used for online patient transactions.
- An AI-powered and XDR-enabled solution that effectively defends against and responds to new security threats and zero-day attacks.
- The solution for replacing the existing virtualization solution must be:
- A cutting-edge and secure Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) solution to establish a modern software-defined data center (SDDC).
- Built-in and high-performance backup, avoiding the need for third-party/external solutions to store/archive patient medical data.
- Support a Disaster Recovery (DR) solution to enable the hospital to meet its obligation to operate uninterruptedly and ensure minimum data loss during a disaster.
Sangfor Solutions and Benefits
Medilife implemented the Sangfor XDDR (eXtended Detection, Defense, and Response) framework, which combines various Sangfor security products into a fully integrated and holistic security system. These products, including Network Secure, Endpoint Secure, and Cyber Command, work seamlessly together to enhance the detection and response to security threats.
Sangfor Network Secure
Sangfor NGAF (now rebranded as Network Secure) is an innovative Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) that is redefining the firewall. It leverages artificial intelligence (Sangfor Engine Zero) and real-time threat intelligence (Sangfor Neural-X) to keep up to 99% of threats out of the network. It integrates unique features, including the world’s first WAF-integrated NGFW, cloud deception for proactive intrusion detection, IoT protection, and SOC Lite for simplified operation.
Medilife deployed two Network Secure appliances as network gateways at two of their locations. Apart from securing the network perimeter, they can now protect their external-facing servers in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with a single product thanks to Network Secure’s WAF integration. Moreover, Medilife deployed hundreds of Endpoint Secure agents for all endpoint users. To further ensure security resiliency, Sangfor offered six instances of Cyber Guardian Incident Response (IR) services free of charge in case of a cyber security attack.
Sangfor Cyber Command
Cyber Command is a powerful Network Detection and Response (NDR) platform that detects hidden vulnerabilities and threats already within the network. It uses AI and advanced analytics to detect sophisticated attacks in the form of abnormal and suspicious activities, which are often missed by traditional solutions.
Cyber Command is also equipped to detect and inventory all network-connected assets through passive traffic monitoring, including medical IoT devices used by the hospital. Since IoT devices often contain vulnerabilities and do not support the deployment of security tools like antivirus, Cyber Command is able to offer real-time threat detection for the hospital network and IoT devices and work with Network Secure to automatically respond to identified threats.
All in all, by providing greater protection with Cyber Command, network security at Medilife has been taken to the next level.
Sangfor HCI
Sangfor HCI is a full-stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) software that converges traditional data center elements of compute, storage, and networking into a single software-defined solution. As a full-stack HCI solution, Sangfor HCI also incorporates Sangfor’s leading proprietary security technologies, management platform, built-in backup and disaster recovery, and cloud-ready expansion.
Medilife deployed Sangfor HCI to replace its physical servers, which were already at their end-of-life (EOL) and, therefore, no longer receiving vendor support and updates. This resulted in low performance and heightened security risks.
Sangfor HCI supported the hospital’s services with robust performance, ensuring 100% uptime and excellent user experience. It also strengthened server defenses against cyber-attacks thanks to its built-in security features, resulting in the secure provision of services since deployment. The hospital’s IT team found managing and operating the new virtualization platform much easier due to Sangfor HCI’s centralized management platform—Sangfor Cloud Platform—allowing them to manage multiple sites from a single location. Sangfor HCI’s native disaster recovery solution further ensures full preparation and peace of mind against disaster scenarios.
Medilife with Sangfor: Towards a Secure and a Healthier Future
Sangfor provided holistic, end-to-end protection via the integration and correlation of multiple products in the XDDR solution, encompassing network, application, endpoint, and cloud security. With full visibility and detailed reports, monitoring network security and resolving security issues has become easier than ever before.
The WAF solution, which is included in the firewall device and is managed from the main firewall interface, has proved valuable. It eliminated the need to purchase a standalone WAF, resulting in significant savings in the total purchasing cost.
With the help of Sangfor’s innovative solutions, Medilife Health Group leveled up its cyber defenses to keep its promise of providing the best healthcare services without any disruption.