NMH

NMH | 2024 198 Administration J ust like in 2023, the year started with 20 new HP EliteBook Laptops being delivered on 11th January. In keeping with the Blended Working Policy that is being adopted, these laptops were assigned to users as their primary machine which has helped reduce the number of PCs throughout the Hospital. A further 10 Laptops were delivered in September. We also acquired 50 PCs spread over two deliveries in February and November and these new PCs were used to replace older models that were due to be upgraded. The acquisition of the Laptops and PCs has further reduced the number of Windows 7 PCs from 250 at the end of 2020 to 20 (out of a total of 530) at the end of 2024. The acquisition of most of these Laptops and PCs was funded from the NMH budget. The Virtual Private Network (VPN) System that was installed in September 2021 started to show problems in January and after extensive investigations and testing, it was eventually replaced in April with an update solution from Palo Alto with higher capacity. There are approximately 200 users who can access the system. The number of Laptops being used now stands at approximately 280. The Department continues to provide updates on our cyber security status to auditors like PwC, the HSE CISO Department and NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre). The introduction of NIS2 will meant continuous work on updating policies and adhering to any new requirements. A follow up meeting with a HSE representative was held in September to check on the status of the Mandiant recommendations. NMH was designated as an Operator of Essential Services (OES) by the National Cyber Security Centre in late 2022. Several meetings were held with representatives from the National Centre for Cybersecurity (NCSC) with Con Grimes, IT Manager, who is the designated point of contact for NMH. Following on from the Information Technology submission of the cyber resilience self- assessment report, two more meetings with the NCSC were held where they outlined the reporting mechanism that will come in to use in late 2024. The three main systems that continue to protect the NMH Infrastructure are monitored and kept up to date by Declan Corrigan and Saju George. 1. Juniper Firewalls with SKY ATP (Anti- threat Protection). Firmware updated 04/07/24 2. Cisco Ironport for email scanning and filtering. 3. McAfee Anti-Virus Software (now Trellix) was extended out to all PCs, Laptops and Servers as funding was provided by the HSE for Cyber Security initiatives. In February 2023, the Telephony Upgrade Project was commenced and throughout 2024 many new Avaya handsets were added so by the end of 2024 370 IP Phones had been installed. There are still some other areas that will Members of the IT Department, Saju George, Con Grimes, IT Manager and Declan Corrigan.

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