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14/07/2026 4:26 pm
TL;DR: Ransomware, cloud compromise, supply chain attacks, or BEC disrupted patient care at 72% of organisations, according to Proofpoint’s 2025 healthcare report based on nearly 700 IT and security professionals. The governance problem is no longer data loss alone, but clinical risk propagation through identity, cloud, and human error controls.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Proofpoint: Cyber Insecurity in Healthcare 2025
By the numbers:
- 72% of U.S. healthcare organizations that suffered common cyberattacks reported disruption to patient care.
- 54% saw increased complications in medical procedures.
- 53% reported longer patient stays.
Questions worth separating out
Q: What breaks when healthcare identity and access controls are too broad?
A: Broad access in healthcare turns a single compromised or mistaken account into a workflow problem, not just an IT problem.
Q: Why do cloud and collaboration accounts matter so much in healthcare security?
A: They sit inside the daily operating layer of care delivery.
Q: How can healthcare teams know whether privileged access is actually under control?
A: Look for a measurable reduction in standing administrative access, faster revocation of unused privileges, and monitoring that ties access to specific tasks or sessions.
Practitioner guidance
- Map critical care workflows to identity controls Identify which clinical processes depend on cloud accounts, shared mailboxes, privileged admins, and third-party access, then assign explicit control owners for each workflow.
- Reduce standing privilege in care-delivery systems Replace persistent elevated access with time-bounded, task-specific privileges for scheduling, records administration, and support operations.
- Harden collaboration and email trust boundaries Apply phishing-resistant authentication, tighter conditional access, and recipient verification for systems used to exchange clinical instructions or sensitive data.
What's in the full report
Proofpoint's full report covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Survey methodology and respondent breakdown across nearly 700 U.S. healthcare IT and security professionals
- Detailed treatment of cloud compromise, supply chain, ransomware, and business email compromise in healthcare settings
- Role-based findings on AI adoption in security and patient care environments
- The report's full set of patient safety impact measures and sector-specific context
👉 Read Proofpoint’s 2025 report on cyber risk and patient safety in healthcare →
Cyber risk in healthcare: what it means for patient safety?
Explore further
14/07/2026 4:34 pm
Clinical risk is now the right lens for healthcare cyber governance. This report shows that security failures are no longer confined to availability metrics or data loss metrics. When 72% of affected healthcare organisations report care disruption, the governing question becomes how access, identity, and recovery controls influence patient outcomes. For IAM and PAM teams, that means care delivery workflows must be treated as protected assets, not just supporting systems. Practitioner conclusion: security governance in healthcare has to be measured against clinical continuity.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when a medical device cyber issue affects patient safety?
A: Accountability sits with the manufacturer for ensuring cybersecurity does not compromise clinical performance, but healthcare operators also need ownership for deployment, monitoring, and maintenance. The practical question is not who caused the weakness alone, but who controls the patch path, the risk decision, and the response when patient harm becomes plausible.
👉 Read our full editorial: Cyber risk in healthcare is now a patient safety issue
