As cyber-threats become increasingly pervasive across the healthcare industry, targeting not only confidential trade secrets and financial information but also the most sensitive personal information, stakeholders need to work together to fight these threats. The United States’ Healthcare and Public Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (NH-ISAC) is thus joining the information-sharing fray with the decision to make its threat-intelligence platform generally available to all current members to help combat online threats.
“The core mission of an ISAC is to enable members to share information to improve the overall resiliency of the sector and this mission is enabled in part by the sophisticated threat intelligence platform available for members,” said Jim Routh, chairman of the NH-ISAC Product & Services Committee, in a statement.
The NH-ISAC said that it hopes to spur industry response by providing its threat intelligence platform to help members capture, process, and work together to respond to online threats.
“As a federally authorized, not-for-profit organization, the NH-ISAC is best positioned to take this lead for the benefit of the healthcare industry free from the obligations of financial performance or shareholder return,” it noted.
The organization said that the NH-ISAC platform is based on technology from Soltra Solutions and Vorstack, and is specifically designed to leverage standards like STIX/TAXII while retaining focus on ease of integration and use within information security environments, even within organizations that do not have extensive security teams.
The platform also incorporates an almost social media-like functionality that lets members share threat information, establish threat detection and fight as a community effort across the industry. Participating members can work together directly to fight threats without fear of security or privacy violations, thus helping to eliminate historical boundaries that have previously prevented organizations from working together.
“We’re very pleased to offer present and future members of the NH-ISAC this new threat intelligence platform,” said Deborah Kobza, executive director of the NH-ISAC. “Our intention is to continue to lead the healthcare industry in its response to threats to our cyber infrastructure, now and into the future.”