South Carolina became the first state to test Project Lifeline 250, a six-month White House pilot that gives rural hospitals free cybersecurity products and backup hardware. The program launched Monday at Newberry Health, 40 miles northwest of Columbia.
White House National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and HHS Chief Counselor Chris Klomp appeared alongside Governor Henry McMaster and SLED Chief Mark Keel. Cairncross said the effort will defend hospital networks, drop in physical backup devices so a hit facility can keep treating patients, and identify and replace high-risk legacy equipment. Cisco, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Trellix, Cyera, ServiceNow, Infoblox, Forescout, Dispel, Abnormal AI and Becton, Dickinson and Company are donating services. The Office of the National Cyber Director and South Carolina’s Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity program, created by executive order in 2017, run the pilot.
Little said about what comes after six months
Officials declined to say when the clock starts, how the program survives past the pilot, who pays for expansion, or why South Carolina went first. Klomp noted the average hospital carries more than 26,000 internet-connected devices and that HHS tracked over 2,200 health-related cyber incidents last year. He invoked St. Margaret’s Health in Illinois, which cited a cyberattack among the reasons it closed in 2023, and AnMed in South Carolina, disrupted for months after a July 26 intrusion.
The strategic bet is resilience rather than prevention: assume a rural hospital will be hit and give it something to fall back on. Every rural provider should be asking whether its own backup plan survives an attack.
