In the past few months, healthcare and life sciences (HCLS) organizations have experienced a series of crippling data breaches:
Yale New Haven Health had a data breach in March 2025 that exposed records from 5.6 million patients.
DaVita, a dialysis provider, was targeted by a ransomware attack in April 2025 that exposed the records of 2.7 million people.
Episource, a firm that provides risk assessment services and medical coding, had a data breach in May-June 2025 that affected 5.4 million patients.
This list only covers a few of the most recent incidents. According to the 2024 Ponemon Healthcare Cybersecurity Report, 92% of healthcare organizations experienced a cyberattack in the previous 12 months – an increase from 88% in 2023. While many HCLS organizations are working to strengthen their security, their networks are sprawling and complex, making upgrades difficult and expensive. The Cybernews Business Digital Index found that 79% of the 100 largest US hospitals and health systems scored D or worse for their cybersecurity efforts. 30% of that number have critical vulnerabilities, and 65% experienced recent data breaches.
Poor security, valuable and sensitive data, and a high risk of cyberattacks are a disastrous combination. Breaches cost millions of dollars in fines or ransoms, compromise HCLS organizations’ reputations, damage trust, and threaten customer privacy and safety.
Why HCLS Organizations are Targets
Enterprise HCLS organizations are frequent victims of data theft for a few simple reasons:
They carry highly sensitive, valuable data: names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and health records, making them valuable targets. According to an IT advisory consultant, these patient records enable cyberattackers to file a fraudulent state tax bill or Medicare or Medicaid claim.
Their networks often have vulnerabilities like insufficient encryption, unprotected outbound traffic, or poor visibility, making them easier targets.
To prevent similar attacks, regulatory bodies are strengthening compliance standards. The upcoming HIPAA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposes these updates to the HIPAA Security Rule:
Mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) for systems handling PHI (protected health information) to prevent unauthorized access
Encryption of PHI in transit and at rest to prevent data theft
Network segmentation and regular testing to isolate regulated systems and prevent unauthorized access
Tested disaster recovery, backup, and incident response processes to ensure resiliency in case of an incident
A network map that illustrates how ePHI moves, enters, and exits electronic information systems
These compliance standards require more than policy documentation and a once-a-year checklist. Auditors want clear evidence that organizations are implementing strong security measures.
Challenges to Your HCLS Organization’s Security
These regulation updates mean that upgrading your cloud network security is mandatory. But security upgrades are time-consuming, complex, and costly. They require more than legacy security solutions like EDR (endpoint detection and response) that threat actors can evade or disable. They call for solutions that embed security into the fabric of your network and guarantee ongoing visibility, resiliency, and security policy enforcement. There are a few of the greatest challenges to HCLS security:
1. Network Complexity and Tool and Alert Fatigue
Many organizations are already struggling with too many tools in their security stack. According to the 2024 CDW Cybersecurity Report, 68% of surveyed organizations use between 10 and 49 security tools or platforms – a management and budgetary nightmare. Monitoring a high number of tools can also put security teams in danger of alert fatigue, which could slow threat detection and response time.
2. Network Blind Spots
Many networks have blind spots that allow attackers to enter and move laterally without detection. When many organizations migrated their networks to the cloud, they “lifted and shifted” old security models like perimeter-based defenses. Unfortunately, a cloud network does not have a single perimeter like a legacy on-premises network. Every VPC, VNet, Kubernetes container, and serverless container creates a micro-perimeter that needs protection.
The result is that cloud networks are much easier to infiltrate, and many security teams don’t have visibility into east-west (in-network) or inter-cloud traffic. These blind spots make it easy for attackers to scout the network freely, exploring and collecting data to steal.
The Security Organizations Need: Real-Time, Runtime Network Control
To meet HIPAA NPRM and HITRUST requirements before an audit, HCLS organizations must shift from concept to practice, embedding security into their network architectures and continuously screening for possible threats:
Network segmentation that protects workloads and partner access with distributed, cloud-native firewalls
Network-level encryption for protecting all traffic across shared cloud infrastructure
Policy-as-code that automatically enforces security policies, ensuring that cloud network security is consistent and scalable
Visualization and telemetry for all traffic paths, especially between ePHI-tagged systems
Visibility and monitoring that is continuous and comprehensive, leaving no blind spots
Aviatrix Cloud Native Security Fabric: Protecting Data and Proving Compliance
Aviatrix Cloud Native Security Fabric (CNSF) protects sensitive workloads across clouds and locations. It empowers you to secure your data and prove HIPAA and NPRM compliance through:
Zero trust network architecture that uses macro and microsegmentation and distributed firewalling based on cloud workload metadata and policy to prevent lateral movement
High-performance encryption that meets HIPAA and HITRUST encryption mandates:
Inline encryption of inter-cloud and intra-cloud traffic
Fabric-native AES-256 encryption with full path integrity
Inline AES-256 encryption for inter-cloud and intra-cloud traffic, with consistent policy enforcement
Policy-as-code with Terraform that integrates security into CI/CD pipelines to guarantee policy is added without impacting speed of app development
Runtime visibility and control to detect network anomalies and enforce security policies
Real-time telemetry and audit-ready logs to prove compliance
Centralized traffic mapping for PHI Automate secure deployment, avoiding human error and reduce audit prep
To protect their data, HCLS organizations’ security teams need a better solution than a patchwork of disparate tools that leave blind spots. Explore CNSF today as a comprehensive security solution that restores network control and proves compliance.
Learn more about how CNSF can prove compliance and prevent data theft:
Discover how AccessAI leverages CNSF to deliver secure enterprise AI agents.
Take a free security assessment to find out where your network’s blind spots are.
Schedule a demo to see how CNSF can help you meet compliance requirements.
