Athena Security launches H-Shield to digitally secure healthcare assets

Athena Security announced the launch of H-Shield, which protects a healthcare organization's most critical digital assets: PHI and PII information.

"We built our reputation guarding the physical entryway to buildings, stopping threats before they can enter. With H-Shield, we are applying that same proactive philosophy to the digital front door of your organization," said Lisa Falzone, President of Athena Security. "We are prioritizing our life-safety customers first because their need to protect their clients' PII and PHI data is absolute."

H-Shield is a private, authenticated, and authoritative DNS platform that introduces:

• Unified Domain for Enhanced Anonymity and Simplicity: H-Shield directs all clients to a single, universal domain: wds.athena-security.com. H-Shield leverages proprietary routing technology to direct traffic to each customer's separate, dedicated server infrastructure. This unified approach significantly enhances security by making it impossible to identify which specific company is utilizing the service. Furthermore, it creates a seamless user experience, eliminating the need to manage different login addresses across multiple territories or applications.

• Advanced Security Architecture: H-Shield's security architecture goes beyond conventional methods like split-horizon DNS. Even if a DNS server is hacked, attackers will only gain access to external entries, never internal data they shouldn't see. This multi-layered defense eliminates DNS-based reconnaissance.

• A Digital Handshake for Every Connection: When a legitimate user's system requests a connection, H-Shield provides not only the server's IP address (A Record) but also a secret, single-use digital token within a companion text field (TXT Record). The endpoint server requires this token to grant access. Any connection attempt without this valid token is instantly rejected, making secure systems invisible and inaccessible to unauthorized scanners and malware.

• Mandatory Infrastructure for Core Products: Every new deployment of Athena's concealed weapon detection on-prem or private cloud and visitor management systems will now have H-Shield integrated as a mandatory security component. It only requires an Enterprise MDM Solution to install.

• Zero-Trust for Vendor & Data Protection: H-Shield operates on a "zero-trust" model by maintaining an "allow-list" of approved domains. This isolates the network and prevents unvetted vendor software from becoming a vector for data exfiltration.

Effective immediately, H-Shield will be a core component of all Athena Security deployments for its Weapon Detection System and Visitor Management System within the healthcare sector.

This platform is exclusively available to healthcare clients who implement on-premise or private cloud versions of our WDS or VMS.