Medical Systems Under Siege: Rising Tide of Cyber Attacks

Medical Systems Under Siege: Rising Tide of Cyber Attacks

At a glance

• Increased Attacks on Healthcare: Hospitals face more frequent and more aggressive attacks aimed at patient data and clinical systems.
• Recommendations from Experts: A Newsweek Access Health panel laid out what hospitals should do before and after a breach.
• Importance of Workforce Training: Staff who know what to look for are an important line of defense.
• Call for Collaborative Efforts: Hospitals are urged to share threat information and coordinate IT and operations teams.

Hospitals in the crosshairs

Attacks on healthcare keep rising. They expose patient data and can shut down systems hospitals need to treat people, and each new incident shows how thin many hospitals’ defenses are.

What the Access Health panel recommended

In April 2025, Newsweek’s Access Health series hosted a panel on hospital cybersecurity titled “Is Your Hospital Cyber-Safe? How to Anticipate Unseen Threats.” The panelists were Theresa Lanowitz, Michael Adams and Trent Sanders. Their advice was practical: have a formal incident response plan and test it.

The panel stressed that health systems are facing more aggressive attackers, and that the consequences of an attack go beyond data loss to patient care itself.

Staff on the front line

Much of the discussion covered people. Employees are often the easiest way into a hospital network, so they need regular training to spot phishing and other tricks. Practice drills help staff respond when something goes wrong.

Trained staff can spot suspicious activity early, before it turns into a full breach.

Coordinating the response

The panelists urged hospitals to isolate and contain threats quickly once detected. IT and operations teams need to work together, and hospitals should share threat information with each other.

They also recommended mapping which systems hold protected health information and removing devices that are no longer used. Both steps cut down the places an attacker can go.

AI on both sides

The panel noted that AI cuts both ways. Hospitals can use AI tools to spot threats in large volumes of data, but attackers are using AI too.

What hospitals should do first

Attacks on hospitals are getting worse, and patients are the ones at risk. The panel’s advice comes down to a few steps: test an incident response plan, train staff, know where patient data lives, cut unused devices and coordinate with other hospitals. Those steps are within reach for most health systems.

Dan Evert, CCNP

Dan Evert is a self proclaimed Router Jockey. Dan got heavily involved in networking right out of high school and has never looked back! Dan is giving back by working with high school students to get them involved and interested in Networking and Security.