In a previous post on Future Healthcare Today, we shared videos from Senior Director of Product Management at SolarWinds Mav Turner’s series about prioritizing IT modernization, mitigating the impact of legacy IT on modernization progress, and information security statuses in legacy systems. Mav’s video series aims to share tips and insights for IT leaders about the most sensible approaches to tackling IT modernization.
In part four of his video series, Mav shares advice for CISOs regarding the process of bolstering security and the necessary mindsets for successfully modernizing outdated IT systems.
First and foremost, Mav emphasized the importance of understanding that organizations undergoing these updates will be operating in a hybrid environment. He adds, “When you’re thinking about security, you have to think about these two natures of hybrid. You have to think about how you deployed your information technology, on-prem and in the cloud, and how you have both legacy systems and modern applications running side by side.” By understanding and accepting that hybridization, health IT teams will run more smoothly and efficiently.
Mav also notes that an established and constructive training program is essential, as technology is constantly changing and new, more secure solutions are of no use if employees are not properly briefed on how to use them. “Training is a continuous initiative.” Even though this process will take some time and monetary investment, your team will benefit in the long run.
A complete and comprehensive inventory of a health IT infrastructure is also key to bolstering security. By keeping track of how all systems and subsystems are interconnected, risk and vulnerabilities can be more easily identified.
Finally, Mav touched on the importance of proper system segmentation. By segmenting your infrastructure, it’s assured that only the minimal access is grated for an application to function, closing off other systems from any potential threats associated with that function.
Watch the full video below to learn from Mav about how CISOs can focus on bolstering security for their systems while IT modernization is taking place.
