California-based cyber-security company Forescout Technologies has acquired CyberMDX, a healthcare cyber-security provider delivering visibility and threat prevention for medical devices and clinical networks.

The acquisition strengthens Forescout’s position in out-of-the-box support for connected device types across IT, IoT, OT and IoMT devices.

“Forescout is seeing rapid growth in healthcare, a market the company has always focused attention on from a technology and sales perspective,” said Wael Mohamed, CEO of Forescout. “Cyber security for IoMT, much like cyber security for OT devices, requires specific expertise and technologies. We are pleased to have the CyberMDX team join Forescout as we continue delivering new capabilities on our market-leading platform and grow our R&D centre.”

Forescout is seen by many as a leader in device visibility and control, ensuring users can see all the devices connected to their networks, continuously and in real time, and then take automated action to mitigate risks. CyberMDX offers visibility and risk management of IoMT devices. Together, Forescout and CyberMDX have a platform that delivers an easy-to-use, scalable and agentless approach to device visibility, classification, threat detection and incident response focused on IoMT devices to serve healthcare organisations.

“CyberMDX enables hospitals to provide quality care by securing and protecting the systems and devices they rely on every day to treat patients and save lives,” said Amir Magner, president of New York-based CyberMDX. “We are thrilled to join the Forescout team where our innovation can continue to make a profound difference to healthcare organisations around the world.”

Broad coverage across all device types is essential as larger organisations, such as in healthcare, almost always have a wide variety of device types, including IT and a rapidly expanding number of IoT devices, in addition to IoMT and OT devices.

In 2018, Forescout acquired Security Matters, a provider of visibility and risk management for OT systems, also known as industrial control systems. Forescout has seen major deployments in critical infrastructure sectors such as energy and utilities.

Recently, Forescout announced that its platform discovered 66% more devices than originally expected at the University Health Network (UHN), a group of four hospitals in Toronto, Canada, that includes the Toronto General Hospital. UHN is leveraging the Forescout platform to deal with the exponential increase in the number of IoT devices and ever-increasing volume of sophisticated threats, including ransomware.