TORONTO – Thales, a leader in critical information systems, cybersecurity and data security, is providing hardware-based encryption technology to North York General Hospital (NYGH) to facilitate the secure exchange of information between the hospital’s physicians, healthcare staff and patients.

The resulting digital service supplements in-person consultations with online communications using PCs and mobile devices, enabling more timely and convenient interactions between patients and hospital staff.

According to the 2017 Thales Data Threat Report, Healthcare Edition, 66 percent of global healthcare IT respondents experienced a data breach in the past. It was therefore vital to this project that the security architecture ensured information remains confidential and completely unintelligible for everyone other than the message sender and the legitimate recipient.

The solution provides end-to-end protection of traffic while simultaneously enabling the use of a wide range of devices increasingly common within the healthcare industry – including patient-owned mobile phones, medical appliances and ultimately, IoT devices. With a goal of identifying a strategy that allowed for growth, flexibility and privacy, NYGH selected IDENTOS, a global provider of encryption services and solutions, and a Thales technology partner, to provide the security platform needed to run the service.

Sumon Acharjee (pictured), CIO of North York General Hospital, said: “After careful consideration, we opted to add the IDENTOS solution to our security infrastructure toolbox to provide more flexibility in providing modern, encryption-based strategy driven by Thales and IDENTOS. These two companies have the extensive, proven experience necessary for creating a solution that embraces growth, flexibility and accounts for today’s mobile-savvy users.”

IDENTOS offers an innovative key management technology specifically optimized for mobile application integrations to protect data and transactions on mobile devices. The IDENTOS technology integrates in a few hours with full-service modules for application anti-tampering, data encryption, digital identity, Fast Identity Online (FIDO) authentication and end-to-end secure chat.

The IDENTOS encryption-as-a-service subscription platform is integrated with Thales nShield Connect hardware security modules (HSMs) to protect and manage cryptographic keys within a hardened device. nShield Connect HSMs support some of the highest cryptographic transaction rates in the industry, making them ideal for the cyberattack-prone healthcare sector.

Peter Galvin, VP of strategy for Thales e-Security said, “By embracing a solution that delivers security and trust in data without impacting business agility, NYGH is implementing an advanced data security solution to ensure data protection and privacy as they digitally transform their business. This digital transformation, increasingly marked by advanced technologies such as mobile and IoT devices, demands a more thoughtful, data-centric strategy – and it’s one that we, along with our partner IDENTOS, are proud to protect.”

Thales nShield Connect is certified to FIPS 140-2 standard defined by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE). The Thales HSM generates the NIST required Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) keys utilized by the IDENTOS data encryption platform.

About Thales eSecurity

Thales eSecurity is the leader in advanced data security solutions and services that deliver trust wherever information is created, shared or stored. We ensure that the data belonging to companies and government entities is both secure and trusted in any environment – on-premise, in the cloud, in data centers or big data environments – without sacrificing business agility. Security doesn’t just reduce risk, it’s an enabler of the digital initiatives that now permeate our daily lives – digital money, e-identities, healthcare, connected cars and, with the internet of things (IoT), even household devices. Thales provides everything an organization needs to protect and manage its data, identities and intellectual property, and meet regulatory compliance – through encryption, advanced key management, tokenization, privileged-user control and high-assurance solutions. Security professionals around the globe rely on Thales to confidently accelerate their organization’s digital transformation. Thales e-Security is part of Thales Group.