Cybersecurity threats in healthcare sector risk patient safety

Trustwave has issued new reports detailing significant cybersecurity threats to the healthcare sector, highlighting vulnerabilities that could endanger patient lives due to increasing digitalisation.

The Trustwave SpiderLabs team's latest research underscores several factors contributing to the healthcare sector's susceptibility to cyber threats. With sensitive patient data, legacy systems, expanding telehealth services, and a growing number of connected devices, the healthcare sector has become a prime target for cybercriminals. These reports explore the consequences of the healthcare sector's rapid digital transformation on patient care and provide in-depth analyses of ransomware and existing security gaps.

Kory Daniels, Chief Information Security Officer at Trustwave, explained the gravity of the threats posed by technological advancements in healthcare. "Healthcare artificial intelligence and technology adoption presents a spectrum of risks that few other industries need to navigate. The risk is not just incredibly sensitive data privacy, but human life and quality of patient care. It's not hard to see how compromised medical equipment like a ventilator or pump could lead to a wrong dose or missed patient alert that results in death. Complex supply chains, lapses in patches and credential management all have consequences too serious for anyone in the healthcare industry to ignore," Daniels detailed.

An important component of the reports is the analysis of adversarial groups targeting the healthcare sector and the common gaps identified in cybersecurity measures. These security gaps often arise from inadequate patching and insufficient credential management, which leave vulnerabilities for attacks.

The research outlines the array of compliance regulations that healthcare organisations must adhere to, many of which are intrinsically linked to the sector's extensive supply chains. These supply chains are critical to maintaining operational efficiency but also introduce significant cybersecurity threats, particularly from third-party partners, thereby impacting compliance efforts.

The findings of the Trustwave SpiderLabs' research series points to several key statistics indicative of the current threat landscape in the healthcare sector. Notably, 45 per cent of attacks exploited public-facing applications, with 56 per cent of these specifically targeting vulnerabilities in Log4j. The research also highlighted that 21 per cent of ransomware attacks were aimed at public health and government healthcare targets, while 51 per cent of these ransomware attacks affected US-based healthcare companies. Additionally, the threat group known as Ransomhub was responsible for 9 per cent of all attacks.

These analyses are made available in Trustwave's 2025 research series on healthcare, including the "2025 Trustwave Risk Radar Report: Healthcare Sector," "Healthcare Sector Deep Dive: Unmasking Security Gaps," and "Healthcare Sector Deep Dive: Ransomware Trends and Impact." The reports offer healthcare organisations actionable insights to enhance their security posture against these documented threats.