• 81% of healthcare organizations were breached by social engineering attacks in the past year.
• 30% do not regularly train teams on cyberattack response.
• 23% say a breach could take a month or longer to detect.
• 40% do not proactively assess IT risk.

Our analysis highlights the four cybersecurity gaps most threatening healthcare and life sciences organizations in 2025 — vulnerabilities that could lead to operational disruption, patient data loss, and regulatory penalties.

The Top 4 Healthcare Cybersecurity Gaps to Beware of

Despite high confidence among executives, real vulnerabilities continue to threaten healthcare resilience. The following four gaps are creating a dangerous false sense of security across the industry.

1. Healthcare organizations do not maintain robust cybersecurity training programs.

Thirty percent of organizations do not regularly train teams on how to respond to cyberattacks or data breaches, and nearly half do not use simulated phishing exercises — one of the most effective methods for testing employee awareness. Given that 81% of organizations experienced an AI-driven social engineering attack last year, training programs must evolve alongside the threat landscape.

Life sciences companies report even lower confidence in employee readiness, with more than 13% indicating little or no confidence in users’ ability to detect advanced social engineering attacks.

2. Organizations have not implemented efficient incident response plans.

Nearly 23% of organizations say it could take up to a month to detect and contain a suspected breach using current controls. For life sciences companies, response times are even longer, with 20% reporting it could take months to contain an incident.

Further complicating response efforts, 17% of healthcare organizations lack a current or effective incident response plan, and 16% say their teams are not regularly trained on incident response procedures.

3. In-house cybersecurity and IT teams are not adequately staffed.

While 63% of organizations maintain in-house cyber or IT teams, staffing levels and expertise remain significant concerns. Key findings include:

• 23% report their cyber/IT team is understaffed, including 38% of ambulatory care centers.
• 57% lack the time, resources, or internal expertise to meet regulatory requirements and oversee compliance.
• 26% cite employee retention and sourcing qualified talent as their biggest challenge.
• 21% believe recovery from a cyberattack would be delayed due to limited in-house expertise or lack of access to an outsourced 24×7 Security Operations Center (SOC).

4. Healthcare organizations do not assess vulnerabilities across their attack surface frequently enough.

Forty percent of organizations do not conduct proactive IT risk assessments, and 18% have no plans to begin within the next 12 months. Among those that do assess vulnerabilities, 20% do so less than quarterly — a significant risk given the speed and sophistication of today’s threat landscape. Without continuous monitoring and structured risk evaluation, threats can escalate before they are detected.

These challenges will not resolve on their own. With limited internal resources, understaffed IT teams, and insufficient response planning, many healthcare organizations are recognizing the need for external expertise.

Managed security services providers (MSSPs) are increasingly essential to strengthening cyber resilience. In fact, 17% of healthcare leaders report losing sleep because their greatest cyber weakness is not having an experienced MSSP to support strategic risk management and response.