Leading Hospital Network in Brazil Secures its Rapid Growth with Illumio

Business goals

As a rapidly expanding hospital network in Brazil, MaterDei understands the importance of providing the highest-quality medical and surgical services while meeting growing demand. As one of the largest hospital systems in the State of Minas Gerais, MaterDei also has facilities in the states of Bahia, Pará, and Goiás.

Founded in 1980, MaterDei has grown from five hospital locations across Brazil to 13 in just two years — vigorous growth by any standard. This reach requires a large and complex IT infrastructure, with many applications in the cloud and doctors who require remote access. Such rapid growth has brought both technical and financial challenges.

A major focus of MaterDei is its clinical expertise, combined with innovative medical advances that are recognized by patients, the medical community, healthcare operators, and suppliers alike. With regulations and compliance requirements, MaterDei has the mandate of ensuring the protection of patient data.

Driven by its dedication to enhancing the quality of life of its patients, MaterDei's CISO, Luis Inerarite's responsibilities directly impact the individuals under MaterDei's care. Inerarite also understands that the healthcare sector has become a major target for cyberattacks.

Technology challenges

MaterDei’s complex IT infrastructure consists of a mix of Windows, Linux, and MacOS devices. It also deploys microservices using Kubernetes and Docker and runs many of its applications in the cloud, with each network layer requiring different cybersecurity controls. For Inerarite, visibility is critical, as is reducing the attack surface of MaterDei’s infrastructure through microsegmentation.  

For Inerarite, microsegmentation is a fundamental tool for guaranteeing granular control of data flows. “It’s especially important to guarantee the protection of our servers against ransomware and other cyberattacks. There are many types of frequent attacks, and microsegmentation helps us control and secure our data flows,” said Inerarite.

Originally, Inerarite’s team had implemented a microsegmentation solution and found that, in terms of capabilities and cost, making the change to Illumio was critical to meeting MaterDei’s requirements.

“We had a very complex segmentation project involving many services and microservices, including Kubernetes and Docker,” explained Inerarite. “Expanding and segmenting at this scale with our first microsegmentation solution was too complex and expensive. After changing to Illumio, we found that we got better support and value for our money — and a solution that’s much simpler to deploy and use.”

How Illumio helped

MaterDei deployed Illumio with rulesets in less than three weeks and gained visibility immediately. “With Illumio, we reached our goals in just six to nine months, which is impressive. Our original microsegmentation solution took months to deploy, yet we never finished implementation,” explained Inerarite.

Inerarite describes working with the Illumio team and implementing Illumio Core as simple and fast. “The fact that Illumio doesn’t use aggregators makes it easier, enabling us to see value much quicker.”

We are counting on it to increase MaterDei’s security to its maximum level,” according to Inerarite. “Illumio provides all the security assurance that MaterDei needs.” 

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“Illumio’s most important benefits are its low cost, ease of implementation, and ability to elegantly move around different environments.”

Luis Inerarite
CISO
MaterDei

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_{Results and benefits}

Reduced risk and increased cyber resilience: Illumio ensures the security of MaterDei’s multi-state Brazil hospital network and patient services.

Rapid deployment: MaterDei achieved immediate visibility and cost savings.

Superior microsegmentation implementation over competitors: Illumio provides security controls across MaterDei’s complex, hybrid IT infrastructure.

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“Zero Trust is the future. Illumio provides all the security assurance that MaterDei needs.”

Luis Inerarite
CISO
MaterDei

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