Case Study: Leading Cancer Hospital and Research Center achieves a model next-gen SOC and secure remote workforce with Palo Alto Networks

Enabling state-of-the-art cybersecurity at a comprehensive cancer and research center

A leading U.S. comprehensive cancer hospital and research center—spanning 28 inpatient, outpatient, and teaching campuses with 27,000+ endpoints—faced the challenge of modernizing security into a world‑class, next‑gen SOC while securing a rapidly distributed workforce during COVID-19. Leadership required a cloud‑based, next‑gen SOAR with automated playbooks, full network and endpoint visibility, strengthened endpoint detection and response, and simplified vendor and tool consolidation to protect sensitive research, clinical and PII data.

The center built a Cyber Defense Operations Center using Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR and Cortex XDR plus GlobalProtect for secure remote access. Playbook automation and the Cortex data lake drove near‑full endpoint coverage (~97–98%), cut alerts from ~1,500 to about 40/day, and reduced staffing needs (saving the equivalent of ~seven FTEs so four analysts can manage the CDOC). The deployment also enabled rapid secure remote work for ~3,000 staff and detected/remediated threats such as the SolarStorm backdoor before the attack was public.