OPINION: The cybersecurity crisis in healthcare and our failing defenses

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Why current defenses fail: the detect-and-respond problem 

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To understand why cybersecurity in healthcare continues to fail, we need to examine the underlying philosophy that guides our defenses. Most healthcare organizations follow the NIST Cybersecurity Framework—identify, protect, detect, respond and recover. It’s a solid framework, but the industry has disproportionately focused its innovation on the “detect” phase.  

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Let me walk you through a typical attack chain to demonstrate: 

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By the time your threat detection technology alerts you, sensitive patient data is already gone. You can respond and recover all you want, but that data isn’t coming back. The compliance violations and reputational damage are permanent, and the effects on patients whose private information has been exposed cannot be reversed. Some argue that artificial intelligence will solve this problem, but while we’re applying AI to detection, adversaries are using it for malware creation and detection evasion. We’ve inadvertently created a generative adversarial network between the security industry and attackers, each side constantly improving against the other. The security industry gets better at detection, so malware gets better at evasion. 

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The result? We’re still playing the same losing game, just with more expensive technology. The adversary still makes the first move, and by the time they do, the damage is already done. We need to stop doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We need a new philosophy. 

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A new philosophy: Zero Trust connectivity 

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Instead of constantly racing to catch up with attackers, what if we could change the rules entirely? This is where Zero Trust connectivity comes in—an approach that moves us from detection-centered security to protection-first security. The core principle is simple but powerful: deny all connections by default and only allow those that are explicitly verified as safe. Rather than assuming systems are secure until proven compromised, we assume they’re already compromised and only permit connections that pass rigorous verification. 

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When a device needs to connect to another system or website, the Zero Trust system first verifies both the requesting asset and the destination are legitimate and authorized. Once the exchange completes, the system returns to its default state, denying all connections.  

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This approach offers several critical advantages for healthcare: 

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By moving from “detect and respond” to “protect and neutralize,” we create a fundamentally different security posture that gives healthcare organizations a fighting chance against sophisticated threats. 

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A call for philosophical change 

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Throwing more technology, more AI and more computing power at the problem won’t solve it if we don’t first address the fundamental flaw in our security philosophy. Zero Trust connectivity offers us a different path forward, one that aligns with healthcare’s unique challenges and requirements. By denying all connections by default and only allowing verified ones, we can dramatically reduce our attack surface, protect patient data and safeguard critical medical systems. All that’s needed now is the courage to embrace a fundamentally different way of thinking about cybersecurity, one that puts protection first. 

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