Medigate compiled a list of the most severe vulnerabilities and attacks in the healthcare sector. While this review is certainly not exhaustive, it highlights the sheer volume of attacks on medical devices and the most critical issues of 2021 (besides the global pandemic). 

Today’s healthcare environment is expanding as connected medical devices are expected to grow an additional 42% by 2025. These devices improve patient care, so the growth corresponds with improving healthcare outcomes. However, more devices mean more attack surfaces that must be secured to avoid compromises or disruptions to patient care. 

Attacks are rising, with many estimates placing the 2021 increase at around 40%. Medical devices are a common attack vector, and securing them requires diligence and skill. While each episode has its own unique characteristics, there are similarities between the attack types – attacks to medical devices that have come through IoMT vulnerabilities, platform vulnerabilities, and third-party access. 

This report highlights the top offenders in each of these vectors and provides some generalized recommendations to secure your network. While no one can predict the future exactly, we can confidently expect the trend of bad actors attacking healthcare cyber-physical systems to continue increasing next year. This report looks at those trends and concludes with some general thoughts about the state of device security in 2022.