Industries
Cyber security for healthcare & life sciences.
Patient data, connected medical devices and hospital networks, with ransomware readiness built in.
What is actually going on here
Hospitals cannot go offline. That single fact shapes every security decision in the sector and explains why healthcare is the most reliably profitable target for ransomware crews worldwide. A manufacturer can lose a day. An emergency department cannot lose an hour.
The estate makes it harder. Biomedical devices run operating systems that went out of support years ago and cannot be patched without invalidating certification. The answer is not to patch them, it is to isolate them properly and prove the isolation holds. Most hospitals believe they have segmentation. Fewer have tested it.
We work across hospital chains, insurers and state health schemes, including systems carrying health cards at crore scale. Privacy obligations now come from DPDP as well as from contract, and for anyone serving overseas patients, HIPAA and GDPR sit on top.
Who regulates you, and what they want
Tick the ones that bind you and we will pull together the evidence each of them actually asks for. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Pick one or more above to see what they expect of you.
What goes wrong in this sector
Ransomware against clinical systems
The attack is rarely sophisticated. It is an exposed remote access service, a reused administrator password and a weekend. What makes it devastating is that clinical systems and their backups often share a domain, so the recovery path is encrypted alongside the primary.
Biomedical device compromise
Infusion pumps, imaging systems and monitors sit on the network and frequently talk in clear text. They are seldom in scope for testing because teams fear breaking them. We test them carefully and read-only, because an attacker will not be careful.
Health record theft
Health data does not expire the way a card number does, so it holds value for years. Theft is usually through an over-permissioned reporting or analytics interface rather than the clinical system itself.
Claims and scheme fraud
Where a state scheme pays per claim, the incentive to manipulate eligibility or duplicate submissions is direct and large. This is a business logic problem more than a network one, and it needs testing as such.
How we work in this sector
- 01
Segment first, test second
We map which clinical systems can reach which corporate systems, then test whether the boundary actually holds. It usually does not, and that finding is worth more than a list of patch levels.
- 02
Handle devices with care
Biomedical testing is passive and supervised, run in coordination with the biomedical engineering team, and never during clinical use.
- 03
Rehearse the bad day
We run a ransomware tabletop with clinical leadership present, not just IT. The question that matters is what happens to patients in the first two hours, and clinicians have to answer it.
- 04
Prove recovery
We test that backups restore, in an isolated environment, with a clock running. An untested backup is a belief, not a control.
What we actually keep finding here
Not a threat list copied from a report. These are the patterns that recur across our own engagements in this sector, with an honest note on how often. Where we do not have a precise number we say so rather than inventing one.
- Most engagements
Segmentation that exists on the diagram only
Clinical and corporate networks believed to be separated, with a route between them through a shared domain, a management VLAN or a forgotten jump host.
- Most engagements
Backups on the same domain as production
Which means the recovery path is encrypted alongside the primary in a ransomware event. This is the finding that turns an incident into a crisis.
- Often
An analytics copy with none of the production controls
Full patient records in a reporting database or an export, reachable by far more people than the clinical system itself.
- Almost every engagement
Biomedical devices excluded from scope out of fear
Never tested because teams worry about breaking them. An attacker will not share that concern, and the devices frequently speak in clear text.
Questions worth asking any provider in this sector
Including us. If a provider cannot answer these clearly, that tells you more than any capability slide will. We would rather you asked them than took our word for it.
- 1
How will you test without any risk of clinical disruption, and who decides when to stop?
- 2
Will biomedical devices be in scope, and how will you handle them safely?
- 3
Will you test whether our segmentation actually holds, rather than reading the diagram?
- 4
Can you run a ransomware tabletop with clinical leadership, not just IT?
- 5
Will you verify that our backups restore, in an isolated environment, with a clock running?
What we deliver in this sector
- Hospital network & server security
- EMR/EHR application security testing
- Medical device & IoT equipment testing
- Patient data privacy & DPDP compliance
- Ransomware readiness & response planning
- Cloud & telemedicine platform security
- API, mobile app & portal testing
- Continuous vulnerability management
Proof
Securing 1.2 crore BSKY health card holders
Work in this sector
Named engagements where the client has agreed to be named, and anonymised ones where they have not, which is most of them. Named references are available under NDA.
- Government / Healthcare
Securing the data of 1.2 crore BSKY card holders
Health-scheme platform assessment covering beneficiary data, hospital integrations and claim workflows.
1.2 crore card holders
- Client withheld
Multi-site hospital group
- Scope
- Clinical and corporate networks believed segmented, assessed alongside a ransomware readiness exercise.
- What we found
- A route between the two through a management VLAN, and backups sharing the production domain.
- Outcome
- Segmentation corrected and proven by re-test, backups moved out of domain trust, restore timed in a clean environment.
- Client withheld
Health scheme card platform
- Scope
- A state health card platform carrying records at crore scale, with an insurer and TPA in the data path.
- What we found
- An analytics copy of the record store with none of the production access controls.
- Outcome
- Copy brought into scope, access reduced to a named group, and TPA assessment added to the annual cycle.
Questions we get asked in this sector
Can you test without disrupting patient care?
Yes, and it is the constraint we design around. Anything with the smallest risk of clinical impact is passive, scheduled and supervised. We would rather report less than cause a single delayed treatment.
Our biomedical devices cannot be patched. What do we do?
You isolate them and you monitor them, then you prove the isolation with testing rather than assuming it from a diagram. Manufacturers will not certify a patched device, so containment is the realistic control, and it is defensible if you can evidence it.
Does DPDP apply to us if we are a private hospital?
Yes. Health data has no carve out. The practical impact is consent and retention: most hospitals hold records far longer than any stated purpose supports, and cannot show what a patient agreed to.
How quickly can you respond to a live ransomware incident?
We run incident response around the clock and can be engaged mid incident. If you are in one now, phone rather than email. The first two hours decide how much of the estate you keep.
Not sure where to start?
Book a 30-minute call with a senior engineer. We will walk through your current posture, the frameworks that bind you, and what a realistic programme looks like.