ANSecurity, a specialist in advanced network and data security, has announced a project with United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) for secure IT access, reduced management overheads and managed service delivery for local healthcare bodies.
Spread across three primary sites with over 7,800 supported staff, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust has undergone a BYOD (bring your own device) transition over the last few years allowing more staff to gain secure access to IT services. The aim; to improve operational efficiency.
Jon Hill, Senior Network Engineer at ULH, says: “We have several security systems in place such as our virtual private network (VPN) and two-factor-authentication (2FA) but with over the last few years with a growing requirements to provide IT access to increasingly mobile users, we recognised that to meet demand a technology refresh would be needed but without a massive budget increase. We approached ANSecurity to provide recommendations and to assist us with creating a flexible design model for enhanced secure remote access to accommodate more users and potentially more NHS sites.”
ULH and ANSecurity began a multi-phase project to redesign parts of its core network and security infrastructure. ANSecurity says that its “co-driver” approach means that through the solution design phase and on-going management process, both groups agree to take responsibility for aspects such as failover testing, configuration management, bespoke training and supporting ULH in meeting compliance.
The first phase included upgrading Juniper MAG VPN hardware to new Pulse Secure ‘Connect Secure’ appliances to cope with a larger number of BYOD users accessing services using a wider range of devices. This upgrade included a redesign that moved secure access to an active/active implementation across multiple sites for resiliency. The project included use of a license server within a virtual appliance to enable ULH to select extra licenses as either Network Access Control (NAC) or Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connections. The next stage upgraded its two factor authentication to use a smartphone based app that reduced management overheads associated with handling physical two factor authentication tokens.
ULH across its guest network is deploying ‘Next Generation Threat Protection’. This runs alongside centralised management, logging and reporting systems from SolarWinds to help track configuration changes and ensure ULH meet its commitment to the ISO 2001 Quality Management System standard.
Jon says: “What we have now is a process where the IT team at ULH handles the core infrastructure and when needed we can call on the deep expertise of ANSecurity to help ensure overall service delivery,. The reduction in administrative tasks associated with managing the security infrastructure along with an easier to use and more robust secure access capability offers a much bigger ongoing benefit for our organisation.” ULH is planning to provide elements of its secure access capability to several local healthcare organisations as a managed service.
Jon says: “ANSecurity has been critical in delivering a successful project through its technical skill and understanding of a wide range of different vendor solutions. The infrastructure we now have in place is better able to serve our own secure remote access needs and to deliver shared services to other healthcare organisations in a much more cost effective manner.”
