St Vinzenz Klinik

St Vinzenz Klinik – Innovative e-mail security for the St. Vinzenz Klinik Pfronten im Allgäu.

The St. Vinzenz Klinik Pfronten im Allgäu GmbH provides patients in the Allgau region of Germany with a hospital, rehab clinic and healthcare centre guided by the words of St. Vincent de Paul—chartiy overcomes difficulties. In the digital world, sensitive patient data must be protected against cyber threats, which is why Bechtle optimised the hospital’s e-mail security infrastructure with the Retarus Email Security solution, bolstering its defences against against threats such as malware, phishing and other e-mail-based attacks.

Project details.

Services

IT Security

Industry

Pharmaceutical / Healthcare

Manufacturer

Retarus

Company size

250 – 1,500 employees

Challenge.

The St. Vinzenz Klinik Pfronten hospital has a long tradition. It became a limited company in 2006 and added a healthcare centre in 2010 offering specialist outpatient care in a range of fields. All facilities are characterised by a friendly atmosphere and heartfelt cooperation to help patients on their road to recovery. Sensitive data are to be protected in accordance with the EU’s GDPR and the NIS2 Directive (Network and Information Security) which also stipulate the requirements for risk management, data encryption, incident response processes and reporting obligations in the event of security incidents. To make sure all these requirements are fulfilled and IT risks are kept to a minimum, the St. Vinzenz Klinik must ensure that all necessary technical and organisational measures are in place, including securing e-mail communication against external attacks as e-mails have been identified as the main gateway for cyber threats. With this in mind, the hospital was on the look out for an innovative solution that would seamlessly integrate into the existing Microsoft Exchange System and be ready for the ever-more sophisticated e-mail-based cyberattacks. The solution should include sandboxing technology with which the hospital can securely analyse potentially harmful content before it wreaks havoc and IT managers were also keen to receive regular status reports in order to be in a position to proactively respond to threats. Also on the wish list were multiple scanning capabilities and the possibility to move from on-premise into the cloud, all of which the St. Vinzenz Klinik wanted to leverage to fulfil current security requirements for e-mail traffic and boost its resilience to cyberattacks.

With the roll out of Retarus Email Security, we’ve taken a significant step towards a secure and future-proof IT infrastructure. Thanks to the outstanding professionalism of the Bechtle team, the whole process was completed without a hitch. From scheduling to final implementation, Bechtle collaborated closely with our infrastructure colleagues. It was a real team effort and you can see that in the results, which have more than exceeded our expectations.

Eugen Hegel, Head of IT and Medical Technology, Data Protection Coordinator, St. Vinzenz Klinik Pfronten im Allgäu GmbH

Solution.

After comparing several offers, the St. Vinzenz Klinik Pfronten made the decision to continue working with its long-term IT partner, Bechtle, which introduced the hospital to the sophisticated Retarus Email Security solution. Retarus works closely with German data centres and is 100% GDPR-compliant. With quadruple multiscan, state-of-the-art sandboxing technology and an AI-based phishing filter, its Email Security solution allows the hospital’s IT experts to analyse potentially harmful e-mail content within a protected environment. This means malicious attachments and links are quickly and automatically identified and filtered out before they find their way onto the network where they can cause damage. The solution Bechtle implemented in St. Vinzenz Klinik Pfronten’s system consists of several components. Thanks to Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), the hospital now has much better protection against sophisticated cyber threats that can circumvent more traditional security mechanisms, while the quadruple multiscan scans e-mails with various anti-virus programs to detect malware and other harmful content. In addition, the solution provides a sandboxing environment where suspicious files and links can be isolated and analysed. This means that hospital employees can open every link without fear, as both are analysed for underlying phishing pages thanks to time-of-click protection and blocked if necessary. With the help of AI-supported algorithms, the solution also recognises new and previously unknown attack patterns. This all happens fully automatically, which significantly reduces the response time to threats. Moreover, the hospital’s IT managers receive a detailed security report every morning that provides an overview of all known threats and details of any measures that have been implemented. These reports are critical for strategic planning and support the hospital to continually optimise and modify their security protocols.

Business benefits.

The Retarus e-mail security solution implemented by Bechtle at the St. Vinzenz Klinik not only ensures the hospital complies with current EU regulations, but also boosts its resilience in the face of cyberattacks. The St. Vinzenz Klinik can now securely communicate via e-mail thanks to spam and phishing filters backed by AI to provide comprehensive protection against threats. The Retarus solution’s flexibility allows the clinic to react quickly to new security challenges and adapt its security protocols as required. Furthermore, it has contributed to raising awareness of cybersecurity among employees, backed by annual data protection training courses that also cover handling e-mails to ensure the topic remains at the forefront of people’s minds.