Use Case
DDoS Protection for
Healthcare & Hospitals
Hospital networks support patient care, electronic health records, medical device connectivity, and administrative systems. A DDoS attack that takes down the patient portal or disrupts EHR access does not just cause inconvenience. It puts patient outcomes at risk. Flowtriq detects attacks in under 1 second and auto-mitigates to keep clinical systems available.
The Problem
Healthcare is a top DDoS target
Hospitals and healthcare organizations are increasingly targeted by DDoS attacks. Ransomware groups use DDoS as a secondary extortion lever. Hacktivist groups target hospitals during geopolitical conflicts. Even opportunistic attackers know that healthcare organizations are under pressure to restore services quickly and may be more likely to pay.
Modern hospital networks connect EHR systems, patient portals, medical imaging (PACS), pharmacy systems, lab information systems, and thousands of IoT medical devices. These systems are interdependent. When the network goes down, clinical workflows stop. Physicians lose access to patient records, lab results get delayed, and medication orders cannot be processed.
HIPAA requires organizations to implement safeguards that ensure the availability of electronic protected health information (ePHI). A DDoS attack that renders ePHI unavailable is a potential HIPAA incident that must be assessed and documented. Without automated detection and forensics, healthcare IT teams spend days reconstructing what happened.
06:14:00 SYN flood targeting patient portal
06:15:30 EHR response times degrade
06:17:00 Nurses report portal unreachable
06:22:00 IT security begins investigation
06:30:00 Attack source identified
06:35:00 Manual firewall rules applied
06:35:00 Total disruption: 21 minutes
Clinical staff affected: 340
Patients unable to access portal: 1,200
HIPAA assessment required: Yes
How Flowtriq Helps
Protect clinical systems with sub-second response
The FTAgent monitors each server in your healthcare infrastructure, reading kernel-level network statistics every second. When traffic patterns indicate an attack, the agent classifies it, fires firewall rules, and sends alerts within the same second. Clinical applications continue operating without interruption.
Every incident generates a complete forensic record: timestamps, attack classification, traffic volumes, source analysis, mitigation actions taken, and packet captures. This documentation supports HIPAA breach notification assessments and gives your compliance team the evidence they need without manual reconstruction.
Flowtriq does not inspect packet payloads or access application data. It operates at the network counter level, measuring traffic volume and protocol distribution without reading the contents of clinical communications. Patient data privacy is preserved by design.
06:14:01 PPS=95,000 BPS=3.8Gbps THRESHOLD
T+0.1s Incident opened · SYN Flood · 98%
T+0.3s Auto-mitigation · nftables rule applied
T+0.5s Alerts fired · PagerDuty · Email
T+0.6s PCAP capture · forensics available
06:14:02 PPS=3,280 BPS=125Mbps MITIGATED
06:26:00 Attack subsides · rules withdrawn
Downtime: 0 seconds
Clinical disruption: none
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Key Features
Purpose-built for healthcare infrastructure
Clinical system protection
Monitor EHR servers, patient portals, PACS imaging systems, and pharmacy networks individually. Per-node detection means an attack targeting the patient portal does not affect EHR availability. Each system has its own baseline and mitigation policy.
4-level auto-mitigation
Kernel-level firewall rules drop attack traffic instantly. If the flood exceeds local capacity, BGP FlowSpec filters at the network edge, RTBH black-holes targeted prefixes, and cloud scrubbing absorbs volumetric attacks upstream. Rules auto-withdraw when the attack ends at every level.
HIPAA-ready incident documentation
Every incident generates a structured report with timestamps, attack classification, traffic volumes, affected systems, and mitigation actions. Export reports for breach notification assessments, audit trails, and compliance reviews. No manual reconstruction needed.
Medical IoT network monitoring
Monitor the network segments where medical devices operate through flow-based detection from your switches and routers. Detect attacks targeting medical device VLANs before connected devices are impacted. sFlow, NetFlow, and IPFIX ingestion from network equipment.
PCAP forensics
Full packet captures for every incident, starting from pre-attack traffic. Download PCAPs for forensic analysis, share with law enforcement, or include in regulatory filings. Evidence is preserved automatically so it is available when you need it.
SIEM and security tool integration
Export structured attack telemetry to Splunk, Elasticsearch, Microsoft Sentinel, Syslog CEF, and Wazuh in real time. Feed your hospital SOC or managed security provider with incident data from every monitored system.
By the Numbers
The impact on healthcare operations
Before & After
How Flowtriq transforms healthcare DDoS response
Without Flowtriq
- Attacks detected after clinical staff report issues
- EHR and patient portal go offline during floods
- IT security spends hours on manual investigation
- No forensic evidence for HIPAA breach assessment
- Upstream null routes take entire servers offline
- Compliance documentation reconstructed after the fact
With Flowtriq
- Detection in under 1 second per node
- Clinical systems stay online during attacks
- Automatic classification with confidence score
- Full PCAP and incident report for every event
- Surgical firewall rules drop only attack traffic
- Compliance documentation generated automatically
Pricing
Simple per-node pricing
Monitor your EHR servers, patient portals, medical device gateways, and network infrastructure from a single workspace. No bandwidth fees, no overage charges, no minimum commitments. Flow sources from $19/source/month.
FAQ
Common questions from healthcare IT teams
Does Flowtriq help with HIPAA compliance?
Flowtriq supports HIPAA compliance by providing continuous network monitoring, automated incident detection, and detailed forensic documentation for every DDoS event. Incident reports include timestamps, attack classification, traffic volumes, and mitigation actions, giving your compliance team the evidence they need for breach notification assessments and audit trails.
Can Flowtriq protect medical IoT devices?
Flowtriq monitors the network segments where medical devices operate. Install the FTAgent on the servers and gateways that connect your medical device VLANs, or ingest flow data from the switches serving those segments. When attack traffic targets a medical device subnet, Flowtriq detects and mitigates it before the devices are impacted.
How does Flowtriq handle legitimate traffic spikes during health emergencies?
Flowtriq uses dynamic baselines that learn your normal traffic patterns. A surge in patient portal access during a public health event follows predictable patterns with normal HTTP connections. A DDoS flood arrives as a sudden burst of malformed or protocol-specific packets. Flowtriq classifies by traffic composition, not volume alone.
Does it work with our existing network security tools?
Yes. Flowtriq integrates with Splunk, Elasticsearch, Microsoft Sentinel, Syslog CEF, and Wazuh. It also supports iptables, nftables, and ufw for local mitigation. Your existing security operations workflow and SIEM investments stay intact.
What is the deployment impact on clinical systems?
The FTAgent runs as a lightweight systemd service with less than 0.1% CPU overhead. It reads kernel-level network counters and does not inspect packet payloads or modify application traffic. Clinical applications continue running normally during installation and operation.
Related Use Cases
Flowtriq for regulated industries
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