The interconnected healthcare sector is facing a growing threat from IoT devices.
Check Point Research uncovered a 45% YoY surge in attacks on healthcare organizations as of 2025. Connected IoT devices further compound the risk level. A separate study conducted by Claroty showed that 77% of hospital information systems and 35% of clinical IoT devices contained Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs).
IoT devices, including remote monitoring systems, wearable devices, and medical equipment, have introduced new attack surfaces for healthcare security professionals to protect.
In this article, we’ll explore the growing threats to IoT devices, including the proactive security measures you can take to mitigate these risks.
The Growing Threat to IoT Devices in Healthcare
Patient monitoring has emerged as the dominant application in the IoT healthcare industry, projected to represent 28% of the IoT healthcare market share by 2025. A Harvard Health Letter stated that nearly 50 million people in the United States currently use remote patient monitoring devices (RPM). But those same RPM devices are prone to critical vulnerabilities that expose sensitive patient data and compromise clinical safety.
Securing IoT devices isn’t a simple process. Most often, healthcare security leaders aren’t even aware of the number of connected IoT devices within the organization and network. On average, U.S. hospitals have between 10-15 medical devices for every bed. If a critical vulnerability is overlooked in a single device, it could potentially create a ripple effect across the entire hospital network, enabling attackers to tamper with diagnostic results or shut off life-saving equipment, such as implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) and ventilators.
Key Security Challenges for IoT Healthcare Devices
Healthcare devices encounter several cybersecurity gaps. Threat actors can easily deploy malware on devices without proper security guardrails or launch full-scale ransomware attacks, encrypting patient data or disrupting operational services.
Here are several attack vectors plaguing healthcare organizations:
- Lack of proper authentication: A study found that only 1% of 4,000 scanned DICOM servers had proper authentication. Exposed DICOM servers are just one example of how malicious actors can gain unauthorized access to vast datasets of medical images and put patient privacy at high risk. Organizations can implement a zero-trust approach and deploy least-privilege policies, verifying every user and device before granting access approval to sensitive patient information. Network segmentation and micro-segmentation can also help isolate IoT devices and minimize the blast radius in the event of a breach.
- Unsecure communication protocols: Weak encryption presents many problems. A malicious actor can launch a targeted Man-in-the-Middle Attack (MitM) from an unsecured IoT device connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot on a wearable device and intercept medical data or alter device settings, such as increasing glucose dosages for diabetic patients or administering life-threatening shocks to a heart monitor. Attackers can also corrupt data in transit since there is an open communication line, leading to misdiagnoses or delayed treatments. IT staff may not even be aware that a Bluetooth-enabled medical device has been compromised if it hasn’t been properly updated or patched by the manufacturer. Always ensure that IoT devices run the latest firmware and use encrypted protocols before transmitting any sensitive data.
Best Practices to Mitigate IoT Security Risk
Here are several best practices for securing IoT healthcare devices, such as:
- Patch Management and Firmware Updates:
14% of connected medical devices run on unsupported or end-of-life OSs.
Implement automated vulnerability scanning and patch management workflows. If EOL devices remain in use, trigger internal risk assessments or vendor escalations. - Risk Assessment:
Conduct routine risk assessments to evaluate the current effectiveness of security controls, establish a baseline score for critical device vulnerabilities, adjust policies, and plan mitigation tactics. - Strong Authentication & Least Privilege Access:
Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA), role-based access, and least-privilege policies across devices and users.
This ensures only authorized personnel can access sensitive data and configuration interfaces. - Maintain best practices for regulatory compliance:
Ensure compliance by following established frameworks such as NIST and healthcare-specific regulations, such as HIPAA, HITRUST, and ISO 13485, which define the standards for medical devices, and ISO 81001 for health software and health IT systems. - Generate an SBOM for full device transparency:
The FDA’s SBOM mandate requires manufacturers to inventory all software components and maintain a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) to disclose any critical vulnerabilities in embedded devices. SBOMs help improve transparency and provide visibility into outdated components that could impact patient safety and lead to mass recall.
C2A Security’s EVSec Platform: Built for Connected Healthcare Resilience
C2A Security provides a context-driven platform that empowers medical device manufacturers (MDMs) and security teams to proactively manage risk across every product lifecycle stage.
EVSec enables MDMs and healthcare security teams to reduce the IoT device attack surface in several aspects:
- Real-time risk-based vulnerability management: Automatically and continuously identify, prioritize, and mitigate security vulnerabilities for every software product, based on dynamic risk management throughout the product lifecycle.
- Supply chain and asset management: EVSec leverages BOM management and vulnerability orchestration to monitor and secure third-party software components, reducing supply chain risks.
- Automate regulatory compliance: EVSec provides full alignment with healthcare-specific regulations, including HIPAA, the Healthcare Cybersecurity and Resilience Act, FDA’s SBOM mandate, and NIST guidelines, simplifying compliance through automated auditing and reporting.
Schedule a demo to learn how C2A Security can help minimize the attack surface for healthcare IoT devices.
