Steven Bloor, Chief Information Officer
EXPERTS at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have played a major role in helping health and care organisations develop systems protecting their IT infrastructure against cyber threats.
NHS Digital, the national information and technology partner of the health and care system, has entered a new deal with Microsoft to increase protection against cyber attacks.
Microsoft’s Enterprise Threat Detection Service allows NHS Digital’s Data Security Centre to provide targeted alerts to detection issues, down to individual computers and other devices, providing a full description of the problem and offering expert remediation advice.
The contract for the service was agreed following a successful pilot with NHS Digital and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust.
Steven Bloor, Chief Information Officer at the Trust said: “As part of the pilot we developed processes to deal with the alerts from Microsoft for potential suspicious activities. This has been very positive and helps us ensure that our patient data is protected at all times.’’
The service has already been deployed on over 30,000 machines and it will eventually cover up to 1.5 million devices within health and care settings such as hospital trusts and GP practices.
Dan Taylor, Director of Security at NHS Digital, said: “This deal will further bolster protection against cyber security issues in the NHS.
“It is our role to alert organisations to known cyber security threats and advise them of appropriate steps to minimise risks; this marks a step change in our capability to provide high quality, targeted alerts to allow organisations to counter these threats and ensure patients’ needs continue to be met.”
NHS Digital provides a range of cyber security services for the health and care system, including a service to share threat intelligence, provide on-site data security assessments for NHS organisations and give specialist support for organisations affected by cyber security incidents.