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Securing telehealth and remote healthcare with SASE

Tshedimoso Makhene Sep 2, 2025 4:33:28 AM

Cybersecurity

Securing telehealth and remote healthcare with SASE

Remote healthcare has moved from a pandemic-driven necessity to a permanent part of modern medical delivery. As noted in a 2023 OECD publication, The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Telemedicine, telemedicine has been accessible and used in OECD countries for nearly 20 years. However, its adoption saw a significant increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily serving as an alternative to in-person consultations and bolstering remote care models. Telehealth visits, remote patient monitoring, and cloud-based medical records are no longer side projects—they are integral to how hospitals, clinics, and even private practices function. But as healthcare services expand beyond physical facilities, the digital attack surface widens.

This is where Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) can offer a transformative approach to securing remote healthcare delivery. By merging networking and security into a single cloud-based framework, SASE equips healthcare organizations with the scalability, agility, and protection required for this new era.

Industry leaders agree. Yiyi Miao, Chief Product Officer at OPSWAT, stresses the impact of SASE in this domain: “SASE is a transformative architecture that combines network and security functions into a unified, cloud-based platform. For remote healthcare delivery, SASE offers several advantages:

Scalability and flexibility: SASE's cloud-native design allows healthcare organizations to scale their security infrastructure as needed, accommodating the dynamic nature of remote healthcare services.
Enhanced security: By integrating continuous trust assessment, identity verification, and device posture checks, SASE ensures that only authenticated users and compliant devices can access sensitive healthcare data.
Simplified management: SASE consolidates multiple security functions, such as SD-WAN, CASB, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), into a single platform, simplifying policy enforcement and reducing administrative overhead.

These features make SASE a compelling solution for securing remote healthcare delivery, ensuring both data protection and operational efficiency.”

Why remote healthcare needs a stronger security framework

The healthcare industry has long been a top target for cybercriminals. As noted in the study, Healthcare Data Breaches: Insights and Implications, “from 2005 to 2019, the total number of individuals affected by healthcare data breaches was 249.09 million. Out of these, 157.40 million individuals were affected in the last five years alone. In the year 2018, the number of data breaches reported was 2216 from 65 countries. Out of these, the healthcare industry faced 536 breaches. This implies that the healthcare industry has faced the highest number of breaches among all industries. There were 2013 data breaches reported from 86 countries in the year 2019. The total number of healthcare records that were exposed, stolen, or illegally disclosed in the year 2019 was 41.2 million in 505 healthcare data breaches.” Furthermore, IBM stated that in 2022, “the healthcare sector stands out for extremely high breach costs on the global average chart. Furthermore, the sector has kept its leading position in that respect for the 12th year in a row, setting a new record of USD 10.10 million in average breach costs after rising nearly USD 1 million from the previous year.”

This research makes it clear that medical records are rich with sensitive information, identities, insurance data, and treatment history that can be exploited for fraud or blackmail.

What is SASE?

Coined by Gartner in 2019, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) combines networking and security services into a unified cloud-native architecture. Instead of routing traffic through central data centers, SASE brings security closer to the user, regardless of where they’re located.

SASE typically integrates:

SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Networking): Optimizes connectivity across locations.
CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker): Governs the use of cloud apps and enforces data security policies.
ZTNA (Zero Trust Network Access): Restricts access to applications and resources based on identity and device trust.
FWaaS (Firewall as a Service): Provides scalable, cloud-based firewall protection.
SWG (Secure Web Gateway): Filters web traffic for threats and policy violations.

For healthcare, this means that instead of juggling multiple disconnected security tools, IT teams gain centralized visibility and control over all users, devices, and data flows.

Why SASE is ideal for remote healthcare

Diving deeper into the specific advantages of SASE by Yiyi Miao, we can demonstrate why they matter in remote healthcare:

Scalability and flexibility

Healthcare organizations face unpredictable demands. A telehealth provider may have a surge in virtual appointments during flu season or a public health crisis. Traditional security models can fail under such sudden increases in traffic.

SASE’s cloud-native design allows healthcare systems to scale instantly, adding users, devices, or bandwidth without costly infrastructure changes. Whether it’s supporting a new network of rural clinics or onboarding temporary physicians, SASE adapts seamlessly.

Enhanced security

Patient trust hinges on keeping their data safe. The study, Trust and Privacy: How Patient Trust in Providers is Related to Privacy Behaviors and Attitudes, found that patients with higher trust in physician confidentiality are significantly less likely to withhold important health information, highlighting the importance of data security in fostering trust.

With SASE, security isn’t static; it’s continuous and contextual. Features include:

Identity verification: Ensures only authorized clinicians and staff access records.
Device posture checks: Verifies devices are patched, encrypted, and free of malware before granting access.
Adaptive policies: Access is granted based on risk levels, time of day, or location, minimizing insider and external threats.

For example, a nurse logging in from a hospital workstation may get instant access, while a doctor connecting from a personal device at home may need multi-factor authentication (MFA) and device compliance checks.

Simplified management

Managing dozens of security solutions across multiple sites is time-consuming and error-prone. SASE consolidates critical functions, such as firewalling, identity management, and application access, into a single, centralized system.

This can be especially beneficial for resource-strapped healthcare IT teams. With fewer tools to manage, they can focus more on patient care support rather than constant patching, policy updates, or chasing down shadow IT risks.

Additional security approaches beyond SASE

While SASE provides a robust backbone, it isn’t the only option. Healthcare organizations may also consider:

Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Monitors and prevents unauthorized sharing of protected health information (PHI).
Secure data transfer tools: Ensures clinicians in the field can safely share patient records and imaging without bypassing security controls.

These solutions, layered with SASE, create a multi-layered strategy that reduces the likelihood of breaches.

Regulatory compliance with SASE

For healthcare organizations, security is about threat prevention and about compliance. Regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR require:

Strict access control to PHI.
Audit trails to monitor who accessed what data, when.
Data encryption at rest and in transit.

SASE helps meet these requirements by:

Enforcing access policies globally.
Logging and monitoring every user action.
Encrypting traffic across distributed networks.

By simplifying compliance management, SASE reduces the risk of costly fines and reputational damage while ensuring patients’ privacy rights are protected.

FAQS

Will implementing SASE be difficult for healthcare IT teams?

Transitioning to SASE may require planning, integration with existing systems, and staff training. However, once implemented, it simplifies management by consolidating multiple security functions into a single platform.

Is SASE suitable for small clinics or only large hospital networks?

SASE is scalable and flexible, making it suitable for both small clinics and large hospital networks. Its cloud-based nature allows organizations of any size to implement enterprise-grade security without large infrastructure investments.