Webinar: Protect Your External Attack Surface: Findings and Best Practice in 2024  Register now >>

Sweepatic Logo in white

How ZNA Monitors Their External Assets in Times of Digital Transformation

About ZNA

Ziekenhuis Netwerk Antwerpen (ZNA) is the largest healthcare organization in Belgium. The hospital group entails 10 sites with 3 general hospitals, 7 day centers, 6 specialized hospitals, a psychiatric home and a residential care center. ZNA reaches potentially a million residents and in the city of Antwerp they have a 44% patient share. ZNA has about 6300 employees, including 600 doctors. They count 2500 beds.

ZNA carries quality and accessible care in their DNA. The hospital group plays a significant social role, improving the accessibility of care for patients. For example, ZNA permanently consults with organizations for underprivileged and adjusts accordingly.

 

ZNA schützt seine IT-Angriffsfläche

Keeping track in times of digital transformation

Healthcare organizations face a significant challenge protecting their attack surface from cybercriminals. We see reports of data breaches, ransomware attacks and other cybersecurity incidents almost on a daily basis. Hospitals are not only confronted by the immense costs that follow such an IT incident, but they of course carry a great responsibility protecting the personal information of their patients.

Additionally, as digital transformation gains ground in healthcare, their external attack surface is growing and becoming more complex. The more processes are moved online, the more IT assets are vulnerable for cyberattacks.

The digitization trend is also present at ZNA. The group realized they had to maintain a firm grip on their external attack surface. All their internet-facing assets and distributed IT had to be monitored continuously.

External Attack Surface Management at ZNA

To proactively protect their online exposure, ZNA wanted to have a clear and complete overview of all their websites, (sub)domains, technologies, IP hosts, etc. that are publicly available. This asset inventory then needed to be automatically analyzed and checked for continuous changes, possible issues and weaknesses. As an External Attack Surface Management solution, Sweepatic fulfills this need.

Sweepatic offers an extra pair of eyes on the hospital group’s IT infrastructure to prevent hackers finding a way in. The Sweepatic Platform continuously maps, monitors and manages ZNA’s digital asset inventory. Furthermore, the solution analyzes every asset to find possible improvements, making the hospital group even more cyber resilient.

Ken Bontinck, Security Architect at ZNA: “Our security team can now track all ZNA’s internet-facing assets each step of the way as digital transformation is further established throughout the hospital.”

The security team at ZNA actively tracks their attack surface in the Sweepatic environment and uses it to follow up on fixes or attack surface reduction.

Ken Bontinck: “The automation provided by the Sweepatic Platform optimizes the security team’s time and resources. We follow-up the alerts using our own IT service desk systems.”

 

ZNA Cybersecurity

Why ZNA Selected Sweepatic

During the pandemic, healthcare institutions were under attack not only by the corona virus, but also by cybercriminals. Sweepatic launched a campaign offering the Sweepatic Platform free of charge to hospitals for a 6 month period. ZNA was one of the hospitals successfully testing the solution and decided to go ahead with the license purchase.

Ken Bontinck: “The added value of the Sweepatic Platform is the automated scanning of the online IT assets, the alerting of issues and changes in the external attack surface and the nice, intuitive dashboard.”

Curious to see what the Sweepatic Attack Surface Management Platform can do for your organization? Request a personalized demo or reach out to our sales team.

You can read more about Attack Surface Management in our blogpost: https://blog.sweepatic.com/what-is-attack-surface-management/