Healthcare Cyber Threat Landscape

Ransomware remains the single greatest cyber threat to healthcare. Attackers encrypt clinical systems and demand payment, directly threatening patient care and safety.

Employees, contractors, and business associates with legitimate access represent a persistent threat — whether through malicious intent, negligence, or credential compromise.

Connected medical devices — infusion pumps, imaging systems, patient monitors — run legacy software with minimal security controls, creating a vast and largely unmonitored attack surface.

Healthcare workers are prime targets for phishing due to time pressure, high email volume, and the urgency culture of clinical environments. AI-generated spear phishing is accelerating the threat.

Healthcare organizations rely on hundreds of vendors, clearinghouses, and technology partners — each representing a potential entry point. The Change Healthcare attack in 2024 demonstrated the catastrophic scale of supply chain risk.

As healthcare accelerates cloud adoption for EHR hosting, telehealth, and data analytics, misconfigured storage buckets, databases, and access controls expose PHI at scale.