Marin General now spends $15, 000 instead of $400, 000 to protect its printers from cyber attack

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/marin-general-now-spends-15000-instead-400000-protect-its-printers-cyber-attack

By Bill Siwicki
Healthcare IT News
April 22, 2019

In the increasingly chaotic world of healthcare cybersecurity, where there is 
no shortage of threat vectors, Marin General knew it needed to begin addressing 
the security risks presented by its printers.


THE PROBLEM

"Printers combine the characteristics and threat landscapes of both IoT and 
servers, so they are unique," explained Jason Johnson, Marin General's 
information security officer and president of the HIMSS Northern California 
Chapter.

"We already had security software productions in place, like vulnerability 
management software, security information event management software and others, 
but those solutions did not include printers," he said.

Those technologies are not developed for the unique challenges presented by the 
non-standard IoT characteristics of networked printers, he added.

Because there are more than 60 models in Marin General's fleet of less than 
1,000 devices, none of the printer manufacturers' software would cover the 
whole fleet, either, even if the provider organization had someone available 
and assigned to operate it.

Finally, the healthcare organization did not have any employees or contractors 
to even attempt a manual effort.

[...]



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