NEWBERRY, S.C. — South Carolina rural hospitals are the testing ground for a new six-month federal and state pilot that will give them cybersecurity help from major technology companies at no cost, under a program launched Monday at Newberry Health.
The effort, called Project Lifeline 250, was rolled out by Gov. Henry McMaster and White House National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross. It teams the White House cyber office with the South Carolina Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity program, a SLED-run effort McMaster created by executive order in 2017, plus federal agencies, local governments and private partners.
The work has three main goals: harden hospital networks, supply backup equipment so a hospital can keep treating patients after an attack, and find aging or high-risk medical and computer devices that should be replaced. One tool Newberry will try is Code Cart, a self-contained IT kit built by University of California San Diego researchers that is meant to restore core functions within about two hours of a ransomware shutdown.
The private partners lined up so far are Microsoft, Cisco, Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks, Trellix, Dispel, ServiceNow, Forescout, Cyera, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Infoblox, Abnormal AI and Rilian.
Federal health officials put the scale of the risk in numbers: a typical hospital runs more than 26,000 internet-connected devices, and the federal health agency logged upward of 2,200 cyber incidents tied to health care last year. Smaller rural providers generally lack the budgets of big systems to defend against them.
The danger is not abstract in South Carolina. AnMed in Anderson had operations disrupted for weeks after a July 26 cyberattack and did not return to normal until mid-September.
Officials have not said when the pilot clock starts or how the program would be paid for if it expands. The state effort follows Project Watershed 250, a similar pilot for water systems in Texas, and organizers say the goal is a model other states can copy.
Filed under: Clinton SC Health News
