2026 Ponemon/Proofpoint survey: healthcare cyberattacks rising in frequency and cost, with growing impact on patient care
The 2026 Ponemon Healthcare Cybersecurity Report, commissioned by Proofpoint, finds that cyberattacks on healthcare organizations are rising, costing more and increasingly harming patient care. The survey covered 705 IT and security practitioners. 97% of organizations suffered at least one attack in the past 12 months, averaging 51 attacks per organization, up from 43 a year earlier. 74% of incidents had a negative impact on patient care. The average cost of the most expensive attack was $4.2 million, up from $3.9 million in 2025.
Technical Details
- The report covers four attack categories: cloud/account compromise, business email compromise (BEC), ransomware and supply chain attacks.
- Supply chain attacks had the greatest patient care impact (90% of affected respondents), followed by ransomware (72%), BEC (69%) and cloud/account compromise (65%).
- Reported consequences: BEC delayed procedures and tests (68%), ransomware lengthened patient stays (70%), cloud/account compromise increased complications from medical procedures (59%), and supply chain attacks raised mortality (35%).
- Business disruption was the costliest element, averaging $1.39 million per incident, up from $1.2 million in 2025.
- AI governance gaps: 45% of respondents have embedded AI. 60% lack sufficient controls over sensitive data used in AI systems, 42% say their security measures were not designed for AI platforms, and only 32% have full visibility into AI tool usage. The top AI risks cited were AI vendor supply chain risk (40%), data leakage through prompts (36%), AI-generated phishing (34%) and malicious or biased outputs affecting care (32%).
- Insider risk: 97% of organizations had at least two data loss or exfiltration incidents, averaging 21 per organization. 54% said these affected patient care, and 56% said they increased mortality.
Remediation
Proofpoint recommends a unified strategy combining cyber resilience, identity security, human risk management, supply chain security and AI governance.
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2026 Ponemon/Proofpoint survey: healthcare cyberattacks rising in frequency and cost, with growing impact on patient care
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The 2026 Ponemon Healthcare Cybersecurity Report, commissioned by Proofpoint, finds that cyberattacks on healthcare organizations are rising, costing more and increasingly harming patient care. The survey covered 705 IT and security practitioners. 97% of organizations suffered at least one attack in the past 12 months, averaging 51 attacks per organization, up from 43 a year earlier. 74% of incidents had a negative impact on patient care. The average cost of the most expensive attack was $4.2 million, up from $3.9 million in 2025.
Technical Details
- The report covers four attack categories: cloud/account compromise, business email compromise (BEC), ransomware and supply chain attacks.
- Supply chain attacks had the greatest patient care impact (90% of affected respondents), followed by ransomware (72%), BEC (69%) and cloud/account compromise (65%).
- Reported consequences: BEC delayed procedures and tests (68%), ransomware lengthened patient stays (70%), cloud/account compromise increased complications from medical procedures (59%), and supply chain attacks raised mortality (35%).
- Business disruption was the costliest element, averaging $1.39 million per incident, up from $1.2 million in 2025.
- AI governance gaps: 45% of respondents have embedded AI. 60% lack sufficient controls over sensitive data used in AI systems, 42% say their security measures were not designed for AI platforms, and only 32% have full visibility into AI tool usage. The top AI risks cited were AI vendor supply chain risk (40%), data leakage through prompts (36%), AI-generated phishing (34%) and malicious or biased outputs affecting care (32%).
- Insider risk: 97% of organizations had at least two data loss or exfiltration incidents, averaging 21 per organization. 54% said these affected patient care, and 56% said they increased mortality.
Remediation
Proofpoint recommends a unified strategy combining cyber resilience, identity security, human risk management, supply chain security and AI governance.