Strategy and Solutions
Our client was a multi-hospital healthcare network operating across five states in the U.S., serving over 2.5 million patients annually. The organization’s digital ecosystem included electronic health records (EHR) systems, imaging servers, laboratory information management software, and remote telehealth portals. With multiple third-party integrations and legacy systems in its IT infrastructure, the organization’s attack surface had grown significantly in recent years.
In late 2024, the healthcare group began experiencing a series of coordinated ransomware attempts. Several hospitals reported suspicious encryption attempts on shared drives, while phishing emails targeting clinicians and administrative staff spiked by 200% over three months. Leadership realized that the existing endpoint protection and monitoring setup was insufficient to prevent a large-scale incident.
Zymr was brought in as a specialized cybersecurity partner to design and deploy a rapid containment, recovery, and resilience strategy. The engagement focused not only on blocking immediate threats but also on hardening the organization’s overall security posture for long-term protection.
This collaboration marked a decisive shift from reactive cybersecurity measures to proactive, intelligence-driven defense.
The ransomware surge revealed a range of systemic and operational weaknesses across the healthcare group’s IT and clinical environments.
Several imaging and diagnostic systems were running on outdated operating systems that could not support modern security agents. These endpoints lacked patching capabilities and remained highly susceptible to known ransomware variants.
The internal network was poorly segmented. Once a user’s credentials were compromised, lateral movement between departments was easy. Attackers could theoretically jump from administrative systems to patient databases or EHR servers without restriction.
The organization’s existing antivirus tools relied on signature-based detection, providing limited insight into emerging threats or anomalous user behavior. The IT team lacked centralized visibility across thousands of endpoints.
Phishing remained the primary entry vector. Despite periodic training, staff continued to fall for credential-harvesting emails. Zymr’s preliminary assessment revealed that 15% of test phishing emails were still being opened, with several users submitting login information.
As a HIPAA-regulated entity, the organization was legally required to ensure data integrity, confidentiality, and availability. A successful ransomware attack could have triggered HIPAA breach notifications, class-action lawsuits, and reputational damage affecting patient trust.
The combination of aging technology, inadequate segmentation, and low user awareness created the perfect conditions for an attack to succeed if not addressed immediately.
In short, the client needed an urgent yet structured transformation—from fragmented defenses to a unified, resilient, and continuously monitored security architecture capable of preventing and containing ransomware in real time.
Zymr’s work redefined how the healthcare group approached cybersecurity — not as an IT function, but as a mission-critical enabler of patient safety and operational reliability.
The collaboration demonstrated that cybersecurity maturity and clinical excellence go hand in hand. By integrating detection, response, and user behavior analytics, the hospital system now responds to threats in seconds rather than hours.
More importantly, this project became a model for how regulated healthcare entities can modernize cybersecurity without disrupting daily operations. Zymr’s blueprint is now being replicated across the client’s partner networks as part of a wider healthcare cyber-resilience initiative.
The results of the engagement were immediate and measurable.
These outcomes not only protected patient data but also reinforced the organization’s ability to deliver uninterrupted healthcare services even amid rising cyber threats.
Zymr’s engagement became a benchmark across the network’s regional peers for proactive, intelligence-driven ransomware defense.
Zymr launched a multi-phase ransomware defense and resilience program encompassing endpoint security, network segmentation, monitoring, and user training.
1. Rapid Containment and Threat Analysis
The first priority was containment. Zymr’s incident response team deployed advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) agents across 14,000 hospital devices within 10 days.
By the end of the first two weeks, no active infection remained in the environment.
2. Network Segmentation and Privilege Control
Zymr’s network engineers redesigned the flat hospital network into segmented zones.
This prevented lateral movement, ensuring that even if an endpoint were compromised, the attack could not propagate beyond its segment.
3. Endpoint Hardening and Automated Patching
We established an automated patch management process integrated with the hospital’s ITSM tools.
4. Ransomware Simulation and Incident Response Playbooks
Zymr conducted red-team ransomware simulations to evaluate response effectiveness.
The exercises revealed improved containment times—from hours to under 15 minutes—when compared to initial baselines.
5. Security Awareness and Human Firewall Training
Recognizing that technology alone wasn’t enough, Zymr introduced continuous user education:
Within six months, phishing success rates dropped from 15% to below 2%.
Zymr’s holistic approach addressed every layer of defense — people, processes, and technology — transforming the healthcare network into a resilient, security-aware ecosystem.
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