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VolitionRx Underscores the Critical Role of Cybersecurity in the
Fight Against Cancer

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Modern cancer diagnoses often involve expensive, unpleasant, and invasive testing. VolitionRx Limited was founded with a single goal in mind – helping to ensure that this is no longer the case. By diagnosing a range of cancers quickly, accurately, and inexpensively, the organization hopes to reduce strain on overburdened healthcare systems while also prioritizing the comfort and safety of cancer patients. 

One of the company’s early innovations was a diagnostic test capable of determining a diagnosis by analyzing a small blood sample. 

“As a multinational life sciences company, VolitionRx works very hard to help save lives and improve the quality of life of people with cancer,” explains Louise Batchelor, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at VolitionRx. “For us, it’s about more than efficiency. Caught early, cancer is actually a highly treatable disease.” 

With operations teams in Belgium, London, Singapore, and the United States, VolitionRx is a global organization. Each group uses its own equipment and is subject to its regulatory environment. VolitionRx must be capable of not only protecting its data and intellectual property as they are shared worldwide, but also demonstrating that it can keep patient data safe, secure, and private. 

Safeguarding Patients Across The Globe

“Security is absolutely paramount for us,” says Batchelor. “Our intellectual property is important, but so is the trust of our shareholders and the information of our patients. We simply cannot afford to breach that trust, nor can we ignore the various regulatory frameworks to which we are subject.” 

With this in mind, Daniel Halter, Group IT Manager at VolitionRx, set out with his colleagues in search of a new cybersecurity solution. The ideal product needed to be reliable, efficient, and easily manageable for VolitionRx’s modestly-sized IT department. More importantly, it needed to be readily deployable across VolitionRx’s global infrastructure.

 “Most traditional antivirus vendors were offering the same solution they always had, only slightly jazzier,” Halter recalls. “Their models, though new, were the same thing that had been around for a while. It was also difficult to determine which vendors were selling truth and which were selling dreams.” 

Seeking a better alternative, VolitionRx reached out to international cybersecurity expert Khipu Networks for their recommendations. After working closely with Halter and his team to understand their requirements, Khipu suggested CylancePROTECT®. An artificial-intelligence-based endpoint security solution, CylancePROTECT safeguards against both simple and sophisticated threats through a lightweight client and with minimal human intervention. 

Alongside BlackBerry U.K. Distributor Ignition Technology, VolitionRx spun up a proof of concept for CylancePROTECT. Put to the test, it excelled against the competition, identifying threats that VolitionRx’s existing solution overlooked. What’s more, they were able to run CylancePROTECT on top of other antivirus software without causing any performance issues.

 “Most of the time, you experience performance degradation when you sit one antivirus solution atop another,” says Halter. “This wasn’t the case with CylancePROTECT. We quickly realized the product’s potential, and within half a day, we had a working solution deployed across multiple devices.” 

“The sales process was also smooth and engaging,” Halter continues. “From attending a webinar through to our proof of concept, Ignition Technology was extremely helpful and accommodating. Khipu Networks demonstrated a similar level of engagement, helping us to understand the solution better and providing excellent after-sale care.” 

One of the key reasons Khipu chose CylancePROTECT was because the platform not only detects and prevents vulnerabilities, it also predicts and eliminates them. This is extremely important in any environment. If you have that level of control and visibility and automation, you’re well-equipped to protect yourself against an ever-changing threat landscape.

Matt Ashman,
Chief Commercial Operator, Khipu Networks

Standing Prepared for a New Threat Landscape

“The techniques being used by cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated,” says Halter. “Although we can educate staff on how to detect and ward off potential threats, we understood that alone wasn’t enough. We needed realtime protection that provided worldwide coverage and visibility of our infrastructure.” 

CylancePROTECT proved to be exactly what VolitionRx sought – agile, cooperative, centralized, and efficient. Its low CPU consumption proved especially useful for older hardware, and its AI-based protection means Halter and his team no longer need to update virus definition files constantly. This ultimately allows VolitionRx to focus on what it does best: pioneering new technology in the ongoing fight against cancer. 

“CylancePROTECT has enabled us to really have an enhanced security posture and ensure our devices are protected in real-time against the ever-growing risk of ransomware and zero-day attacks,” Halter concludes. As our organization grows, it also allows us to scale out and deploy as part of our IT strategy. Our experience with CylancePROTECT is a fantastic one – it really does work.” 

For more information, visit BlackBerry.com/Spark and follow @BlackBerrySpark on Twitter.

Organization Profile

Industry Healthcare
Location United Kingdom
https://volition.com/