Cheshire County Government Mitigates Ransomware Risk and Secures Data Regulated by HIPAA and CJIS
Technology Category
- Cybersecurity & Privacy - Intrusion Detection
- Cybersecurity & Privacy - Malware Protection
Applicable Industries
- Cities & Municipalities
- National Security & Defense
Applicable Functions
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Tamper Detection
About The Customer
Cheshire County, located in New Hampshire, U.S., is recognized as an innovative and progressive leader that provides cost-effective services to its residents. The county covers 23 towns and serves a population of 76,610. The county hosts a large amount of sensitive and regulated information, including criminal justice data, financial information, Social Security numbers, and personal health information. The county's IT team is responsible for ensuring the security and availability of this data, in accordance with HIPAA and CJIS requirements.
The Challenge
Cheshire County Government in New Hampshire was facing a significant challenge in managing and securing a large amount of sensitive and regulated information, including criminal justice data, financial information, Social Security numbers, and personal health information. The five-person IT team found it impossible to manually comb through audit logs to ensure that this data was stored securely and handled in accordance with HIPAA and CJIS requirements. The IT director was also aware of the increasing risk of ransomware attacks targeted at local governments and wanted to ensure the availability and security of the data stored by the county. This required quick detection of anomalous activity in any file server. Furthermore, the IT team needed to be able to quickly resolve issues, such as a file being improperly deleted or moved. However, investigating these problems was difficult and time-consuming.
The Solution
The IT director at Cheshire County Government, Robert Hummel, had been using Netwrix Auditor Free Community Edition and was impressed by its ability to transform cryptic audit logs into usable information and simplify security auditing. Therefore, upgrading to the full version of Netwrix Auditor was an easy decision. The software provides automated security auditing, reporting on activity across AD and file servers, and alerting the IT team about the most critical events. This allows them to respond promptly to active threats and serious policy violations. The software saves the IT team two hours a day on routine file auditing. Netwrix Auditor also provides a consolidated view of all anomalous activity across the county’s IT environment, enabling the team to quickly spot a malicious actor, whether it is ransomware, a disgruntled employee, or an intruder. The software also allows for faster troubleshooting. When a file has been moved, deleted, or modified, the IT team can see what happened to the file in a matter of minutes.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Case Study missing?
Start adding your own!
Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Turning A Stadium Into A Smart Building
Honeywell created what it called the “intelligent system” for the National Stadium in Beijing, China, turning the venue for the opening and closing events at the 2008 Summer Olympics into a “smart building.” Designed by highly controversial artist Ai Weiwei, the “Bird’s Nest” remains one of the most impressive feats of stadium architecture in the world. The 250,000 square meter structure housed more than 100,000 athletes and spectators at a time. To accommodate such capacity, China turned to Honeywell’s EBI Integrated Building Management System to create an integrated “intelligent system” for improved building security, safety and energy efficiency.
.png)
Case Study
Smart Street Light Network (Copenhagen)
Key stakeholders are taking a comprehensive approach to rethinking smart city innovation. City leaders have collaborated through partnerships involving government, research institutions and solution providers. The Copenhagen Solutions Lab is one of the leading organizations at the forefront of this movement. By bringing together manufacturers with municipal buyers, the Copenhagen Solutions Lab has catalyzed the development and deployment of next-generation smart city innovations. Copenhagen is leveraging this unique approach to accelerate the implementation of smart city solutions. One of the primary focus areas is LED street lighting.
Case Study
Buoy Status Monitoring with LoRa
The Netherlands are well-known for their inland waterways, canals, sluices and of course port activities. The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure indicates that there are thousands of buoys and fixed items in and near water environments that would profit from IoT monitoring. One of the problems with buoys for example, is that they get hit by ships and the anchor cable breaks. Without connectivity, it takes quite some time to find out that something has happened with that buoy. Not to mention the costs of renting a boat to go to the buoy to fix it. Another important issue, is that there is no real-time monitoring of the buoys at this moment. Only by physically visiting the object on the water, one gains insight in its status.
Case Study
Barcelona Case Study
Barcelona’s heavy traffic and its associated high levels of pollution were the primary factors that motivated some companies and universities to work on strategies for improving traffic in the city centre. Bitcarrier is one of the technologies involved in the In4Mo Project, whose main objective is to develop the applications that form the core of smart mobility, one of the fundamental pillars of the smart city concept.
Case Study
China Mobile Smart Parking
Smart Parking, powered by NB-IoT technology, is making it easier for drivers to find free parking spots. Cities can better manage their parking assets and maximize the revenue available to them as a result. Drivers searching for parking create congestion and pollution by circling and hunting for available parking. Smart Parking services are able to significantly ease these problems by guiding a driver directly to a parking space.
