All termsNetwork zones
External / Internet
An external or internet-facing zone — partners, patients, or systems outside the organization's control.
When to use it
For anything genuinely outside the trust boundary: referring sites, patient portals, third parties.
In plain terms
The public street outside the building.
Common gotchas
- Never trust external input — validate and authenticate everything.
- Exposure here is the highest-risk part of a design.
- Connections usually terminate in the DMZ, not straight into the clinical LAN.