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11/07/2026 8:46 pm
TL;DR: Healthcare organisations face a mix of data breach, ransomware, legacy system, cloud, phishing and governance risks that can disrupt treatment and expose sensitive patient information, according to GlobalSign. The pattern is clear: resilience fails when access control, documentation, awareness and platform modernization are treated as separate problems rather than one governance model.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by GlobalSign: healthcare cybersecurity challenges in the health sector
By the numbers:
- The average cost of a healthcare data breach was 9.6 million dollars in 2021.
- 2020., ximately five million insecure medical devices were operating through IoT and IoMT in 2020.
- 94% of organisations have concerns about cloud security.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How can organisations reduce account takeover from browser-based phishing?
A: Limit the value of any captured session by enforcing short-lived, policy-bound access, step-up checks for sensitive actions, and rapid invalidation of suspicious tokens.
Q: Why do legacy systems make healthcare cyber risk harder to contain?
A: Legacy systems often cannot support modern MFA, logging or patching, so they preserve access paths that attackers can exploit for a long time.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about access compliance in healthcare?
A: Security teams often treat access compliance as a documentation exercise instead of a control outcome.
Practitioner guidance
- Build a unified identity inventory for clinical and non-clinical access Catalogue every identity that can reach patient data, devices, cloud consoles and administrative systems, including service accounts, vendor users and shared accounts.
- Harden phishing recovery and account takeover response Pre-approve rapid revocation steps for compromised credentials, reset workflows and help desk validation so attackers cannot use social engineering to extend access.
- Separate legacy and IoMT systems into compensating control zones Place unsupported platforms and connected medical devices in tightly segmented zones with restrictive access paths, strong logging and limited administrative pathways.
What's in the full article
GlobalSign's full blog covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The article's full breakdown of healthcare threat categories and the operational examples behind each one.
- Specific examples of how phishing, ransomware and insider behaviour are described in the healthcare context.
- The source author's explanation of why governance documentation and staff awareness remain weak points.
- The article's discussion of cloud adoption and why healthcare teams remain concerned about security exposure.
👉 Read GlobalSign's analysis of healthcare cybersecurity challenges and risk areas →
Healthcare cyber risk: what security teams are missing now?
Explore further
11/07/2026 9:11 pm
Healthcare cyber risk is an identity governance problem before it is a technology problem. The article groups data breaches, phishing, cloud exposure and insider threats as separate issues, but practitioners know these risks often converge at access control. When access to patient systems, cloud workloads and connected devices is weakly governed, every other control inherits that weakness. The practical conclusion is that healthcare programmes need a single governance view of human and non-human access.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when healthcare data is exposed through weak access governance?
A: Accountability sits with the organisation that owns the data, the systems, and the access lifecycle, even when a vendor or contractor is involved. Healthcare compliance frameworks expect organisations to maintain safeguards, logs, and access oversight. If third-party access is in scope, ownership must include offboarding, review, and evidence of control operation.
👉 Read our full editorial: Healthcare cybersecurity gaps expose data, devices and uptime risks
