Improvements in Threat Prevention and Application Control Help Sisters of Mercy’s 30,000+ Physicians and Employees
Palo Alto Networks today announced that the Sisters of Mercy Health System (Mercy) has upgraded its security infrastructure by using the PA-4000 Series. Protecting its network and information while driving the safe use of Web 2.0 applications, Palo Alto’s next-generation firewall gives the health system the ability to manage and control the applications traversing its network at a level of granularity not possible with its previously deployed solution.
The ninth largest Catholic healthcare system in the U.S., Mercy’s 28,000 employees and 4,450 medical staff members provide critical services across seven states. Embarking on a strategic upgrade to its current security infrastructure, Mercy was committed to ensuring best-in-class protection for many users and the data they access. Concurrently, the health system wanted to capitalize on the productivity enhancements available from a range of new, Internet-based applications. The inflexibility of traditional threat prevention and port-based security resulted in blocking beneficial applications as well as undesirable ones. Mercy knew it needed a better approach.
"Health care is the epitome of a real-time business, with doctors, nurses and staff depending on immediate access to the best tools for helping their patients," said Dan Schulte, manager of network security for Sisters of Mercy Health System. "But to provide that level of access while maintaining the highest levels of security requires a granular understanding of what users and applications are doing on our networks – and the impact they have on both our business and security profile. The PA-4000 Series gives us the visibility and control to achieve this goal."
"Organizations can’t control today’s dynamic application use and address security concerns with yesterday’s protection systems," said Steve Mullaney, vice president of marketing for Palo Alto Networks. "IT groups can’t manage what they can’t see. Palo Alto Networks’ firewall gives them both visibility and control."
About Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks™ enables visibility and policy control of applications running on enterprise networks. Based on innovative App-ID™ application classification technology, the Palo Alto Networks PA-4000 Series next-generation firewall accurately identifies applications – regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactic or even SSL encryption – at 10Gbps with no performance degradation. Enterprises can now set and enforce application usage policies to meet compliance requirements, improve threat mitigation and lower operational costs. The Palo Alto Networks team includes security and networking industry veterans from Check Point, NetScreen, McAfee, Cisco, Juniper and Blue Coat. It is backed by investors Globespan Capital Partners, Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital. For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.
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