Securing a Clear Vision: How Houston Eye Associates Focuses on Cybersecurity

Houston Eye Associates, the largest provider of ophthalmological and optometric care in Texas, has built a strong reputation over its 50 years of operation. As the organization has grown, so too has its commitment to maintaining a robust cybersecurity strategy that protects patient data and operational integrity. 

The Challenge: Elevate the Security Posture  

The company’s journey with Morphisec began over five years ago when then-CIO Tom Merkle recognized the need to bolster the company’s security infrastructure. Tasked with overseeing a lean IT and security team, Tom relied on a multi-layered cybersecurity approach to safeguard the organization.  

Then, he found that Morphisec’s innovative Automated Moving Target Defense (AMTD) technology alleviated the pressure of response and remediation, providing a preventative layer of security that assured him that "Morphisec is going to protect us beyond any signature-based product that's out there." 

As the company’s IT team expanded, Tom, now the CEO, continued to prioritize a security strategy focused on exposure management. However, he consistently encountered challenges with existing endpoint security solutions, which yielded low return on investment (ROI) and offered minimal (to no) actionable insights.  

Compounding these issues, the vulnerability scanning tools the team relied on often caused unnecessary system downtime that required time-consuming manual investigations.  

The Solution: Adaptive Exposure Management with Morphisec 

Recognizing the need for a streamlined solution, Tom turned to Morphisec’s Adaptive Exposure Management (AEM) capabilities to deliver proactive protection without the disruptions. 

The company augmented their endpoint protection strategy and adopted and adopted  Morphisec’s AEM due to its overall cost efficiency, simplicity, and proactive defense mechanisms.

Unlike the more expensive and fragmented EDR systems the team had been using, Morphisec’s solution helped the team reduce technology costs while enhancing the company’s security posture through preemptive cyber defense. 

With a foundation of trust in Morphisec’s advanced, non-signature-based protection, Houston Eye Associates mitigated the risks of contemporary cyber threats while stepping away from reactive, detection-focused solutions.  

This strategic shift was reinforced by consistently positive experiences with Morphisec's customer support, adding to the team’s confidence in the solution’s reliability. IT Director Kory Hornberger notes that: “Every time I need something from Morphisec, the Morphisec team responds quickly and takes good care of me.” 

Tom emphasized the importance of Morphisec’s continuous vulnerability prioritization capabilities, noting, "Morphisec proactively flags misconfigured machines, so we know what we need to fix and remediate fast — that’s huge." This proactive identification allows for immediate remediation, ultimately reducing risks and enhancing operational efficiency. 

Results: a Transformative Impact 

Morphisec AEM empowers Houston Eye Associates to effectively prioritize risks. According to Kory: "The Morphisec console tells us exactly how to remediate a vulnerability or misconfiguration with actionable steps, making it easy for my team to address issues." This newfound efficiency has enabled the organization to streamline its security strategy while maintaining high standards of protection.  

By integrating Morphisec alongside their Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider, the team has experienced reduced alert frequency and less overall incidents. “Our security is stronger with Morphisec adding a prevention layer to MDR,” said Tom. “Morphisec enhances our MDR strategy by preventing threats before they need detection.” This layered approach has allowed their team to focus on critical tasks, rather than being bogged down by constant alerts and unnecessary remediation. 

 “Morphisec provides peace of mind by being our last line of defense," said Tom.  

Elevating Cyber Resiliency with Adaptive Exposure Management 

Traditional exposure management tools often lack the proactive capabilities necessary for prioritizing and addressing vulnerabilities effectively. This gap in security strategy is driving organizations toward Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), an approach designed to systematically identify, assess, and mitigate the vulnerabilities and risks within digital environments. 

However, implementing CTEM successfully can be challenging. IT and security teams must navigate limited resources, inefficient processes, and overwhelming amounts of telemetry data to accurately identify and prioritize critical vulnerabilities. Developed in alignment with the CTEM framework, Morphisec AEM is designed to address these issues with a next-generation, proactive approach. 

A core component of Morphisec’s Anti-Ransomware Assurance Suite, AEM evolves beyond traditional exposure management by continuously adapting to the rapidly changing threat landscape.  

Unlike static, linear models, AEM incorporates real-time monitoring and leverages AMTD to anticipate changes and proactively address vulnerabilities. This dynamic approach helps organizations prevent potential breaches by responding instantly to new threats and anomalous behaviors. 

Morphisec’s AEM solution empowers organizations to stay resilient by keeping them one step ahead of attackers, ensuring security remains robust even as new threats emerge. Key benefits of AEM include:

• Assurance: By ensuring robust defenses even when other safeguards fail, AEM provides peace of mind that systems remain protected. 

• Cost Efficiency: Through early threat prevention and precise threat classification, AEM reduces resource and financial costs, ultimately lowering total cost of ownership (TCO). 

• Enhanced Visibility: AEM illuminates hidden risks, such as shadow IT, misconfigurations, and high-risk software, which might otherwise go undetected. 

• Defense-in-Depth: Powered by AMTD, AEM adds a critical, multilayered defense to bolster resilience against evasive and unknown threats. 

• Improved Cybersecurity Posture: Boosting audit scores and enhancing compliance can lead to reduced cyber insurance premiums, further strengthening the organization’s security stance. 

• Operational Readiness: AEM improves team efficiency by eliminating attack dwell time and reducing recovery efforts. Through system hardening and virtual patching, it allows teams to focus on strategic priorities rather than routine patching.
  

AEM provides a centralized view of cyber risks, with prioritized actions to focus resources on the most critical exposures. Through compensatory controls like virtual patching, ransomware prevention, and threat prevention with AMTD, Morphisec’s AEM solution delivers comprehensive, proactive protection for resilient, future-ready cyber defense.