CASE STUDY
Rubrik , the Zero Trust Data Security Company , has announced it has helped the Royal Flying Doctors Service Queensland ( RFDSQ ) protect business-critical data and minimize the risk of ransomware attacks against the organization .
Now , Rubrik gives RFDSQ cyber-resiliency and ensures Business Continuity so that the health service can continue saving lives across the state . Covering more than 1.7 million square kilometers , RFDSQ provides essential healthcare and retrieval services to some of Australia ’ s most isolated communities .
Each year , it delivers more than 98,000 episodes of care which includes transporting 11,700 patients to and from metropolitan hospitals , running more than 5,300 health clinics across regional , rural and remote Queensland , and providing health advice to more than 16,000 telehealth patients .
Given the enormous area RFDSQ covers , it relies on a fleet of 20 aeromedical aircraft to reach even the most far-flung corners of the state .
Adam Carey , CTO at RFDSQ , said the dual role the organization plays as both an airline and healthcare agency meant the threat of ransomware holding critical data hostage was one of its greatest concerns .
“ In the past two years , cybersecurity has evolved from a side-issue to our number one business risk ,” Carey said . “ Even against our own organization we ’ ve seen cleverly crafted , targeted phishing attacks , especially to our executive team . It shows nothing is off limits , not even essential health services like ours .”
Following a spate of high-profile ransomware attacks against Australian organizations , Carey said the RFDSQ board and executive team decided to bolster its data security capabilities to minimize the risk ransomware posed to its operations .
“ Patient data is everything to us . It ’ s our crown jewels ,” he said . “ Patient care is our main reason for existing , and the motivation for everything we do . For us , care extends beyond the physical – it ’ s also about ensuring patient privacy is always protected and Rubrik helps us protect it .”
While privacy risks were a key consideration in implementing Rubrik , so too was the potential operational impact a ransomware attack could have .
“ We need to protect our data to remain operational at all times . If we were to lose access to some of our key data and systems , pilots couldn ’ t log their flight plans for the day , so they ’ d literally be grounded ,” Carey said .
Working with local IT partner Centum Services , Carey said he chose Rubrik as it was simple to implement , delivered rapid RTO ( Recovery Time Objectives ) and RPO ( Recovery Point Objectives ), and supported RFDSQ ’ s Microsoft Azure environment .
“ We ’ re protecting our entire Outlook , Exchange , Teams and Sharepoint environments along with the core servers that hold our critical data – both corporate drives and medical databases ,” he said . “ We implemented Rubrik the week before Christmas and it literally took 90 minutes to set up .”
“ The fact we have critical data stored in Rubrik , off-premises , completely air-gapped from our environment , means we can restore to a different tenancy or a completely different server straight away ,
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