Secure and anonymous web access

With a growing number of cyberattacks specifically targeting healthcare organizations, the health center’s IT team sought a different approach to securing their network against malware and targeted phishing attacks. “Email remains the number-one vector for breaching healthcare security,” says the health center’s director of technology solutions. “For years, we’ve been training our employees to recognize and report phishing emails. We’ve implemented solutions for email screening, DNS filtering for known sites, sender unmasking, DMARC, SPF, DKIM and email link and attachment scanning. But none of these efforts have really moved the needle. Our employees are focused on patient care, and hackers are very good at social engineering. Hackers disguise phishing links as legitimate web addresses, so well-meaning employees click on them. Despite all the detection-based solutions and training, I felt like our systems remained vulnerable.”

In search of a better alternative, the director came across the Silo Web Isolation Platform in a tech journal. “I immediately saw Secure Browsing as a solution to the persistent problem that we have. When you can click on anything, without worrying about whether it might be a phishing link or a spoofed website, it’s going to save us countless hours of training, and get us to the level of security where we feel confident about protecting our patients’ information and other sensitive data.”

The director contacted Authentic8 the same day that he read about the technology. He was convinced of its value after a product demo, and went on to test the Silo platform himself. “It feels exactly like the browsing experience on a regular browser. There’s nothing that would annoy or frustrate employees – they browse the web through Silo like they would with any other browser. They can check email and visit external websites. The experience is seamless to users, and IT doesn’t have to worry about employees accidentally clicking on something that might turn out to be malware or ransomware.”

Silo’s full isolation approach with a built-in credentials manager allows the health center’s IT team to protect the infrastructure, reduce exposure to phishing emails and increase convenience for users. URLs embedded in emails are redirected into Silo’s isolated cloud environment. No web code runs on the health center’s infrastructure, which mitigates the risk of accidentally opening a link to a malicious site.

Silo’s built-in credential manager is used to provision access for users to the organization’s applications, without giving end users the actual credentials. As a result, phishing sites that try to entice users into entering credentials are unable to extract anything from users.

Last but not least, Silo’s built-in policies can increase the convenience for users, who frequently have to switch computers throughout the day. Silo can automatically log users into their preferred sites, which saves them time when they switch between computers. 

“People are constantly busy just trying to get through the day,” said the director. “We want to make web browsing as safe and easy as possible for all our employees, and Silo lets us do that.”

As the health center continues to roll out Silo, the IT team is optimistic about their organization’s future with the Silo Platform and Authentic8.

“You can’t teach people to avoid making mistakes altogether,” concludes the technology director. With Silo, we’re closing off the door to potential disasters, and keeping our promise to our patients to keep their information private.”