White House and HHS Launch Project Lifeline 250: Six-Month Pilot Gives South Carolina Rural Hospitals Free Cybersecurity Support
The White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on October 26 launched Project Lifeline 250 in South Carolina, a six-month joint federal, state and private-sector pilot that will give the state's rural hospitals cybersecurity hardware and services at no cost to participating hospitals, to help them defend against cyberattacks and maintain critical care during a cyber incident.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster joined White House National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross to launch the pilot on October 26. McMaster said cyber threats are a rising challenge to the nation's security and that Project Lifeline 250 is an important step toward ensuring South Carolina's rural hospitals have the resources they need to defend against cyberattacks and continue providing critical care. Cairncross said the pilot connects world-leading American industry with rural hospitals to defend hospital networks, deploy physical backup devices after an initial incident so an impacted hospital can still provide critical care, and identify and replace high-risk and legacy devices.
According to the Governor's office, the pilot focuses on strengthening hospital network defenses, providing backup technology to help hospitals maintain operations following a cyberattack, and identifying high-risk medical and other technology devices used in critical care settings. Industry partners include Cisco, Cyera, Microsoft, Trellix and Zscaler, contributing cybersecurity expertise, data inventory work and threat detection and response services; Microsoft said it brings experience supporting more than 870 rural hospitals across the country. The effort brings together ONCD, the South Carolina Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (SC CIC) program, private-sector partners, federal agencies and local governments, with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) taking part.
The Governor's office said McMaster established the SC CIC program in 2017 through Executive Order 2017-08 to strengthen protection of the state's critical infrastructure against cyber threats. Building on the Project Watershed 250 effort for water utilities in Texas, the South Carolina pilot will evaluate cybersecurity solutions that can be scaled to protect infrastructure in communities nationwide. According to Cybersecurity Dive on October 27, HHS Chief Counselor Chris Klomp said at the October 26 announcement event at Newberry Health in Newberry that the average hospital has more than 26,000 internet-exposed devices on its network, underscoring the scale of the risk hospitals face.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国社区医院急诊入口资料图：位于 Kansas 州 Lawrence 的 LMH Health 医院急诊部入口。照片：Wikipedialuva，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / A U.S. community hospital emergency entrance: the emergency department entrance of LMH Health in Lawrence, Kansas. Photo: Wikipedialuva, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
