Healthcare is the most-targeted industry for ransomware attacks in 2025. Here's what you can do about it.

Ransomware attacks have gotten faster, smarter, and more dangerous, and healthcare organizations are now the #1 target. In 2025, hospitals, clinics, and third-party providers are facing more cyberattacks than any other industry.

This isn’t just about stolen data. It’s about real-world consequences: disrupted care, delayed surgeries, locked-out staff, and even fatal outcomes in extreme cases. So why is this happening, and what can you actually do to protect your site and servers?

Let’s break it down.

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Key points

Healthcare is the most-targeted industry for ransomware in 2025, with attacks causing care disruptions and regulatory risks.
Ransomware groups exploit outdated systems and decentralized networks, especially in small and midsize healthcare providers.
HIPAA-compliant hosting offers critical safeguards like encryption, access controls, secure backups, and signed BAAs.
Server hardening, routine risk assessments, and real-time monitoring significantly reduce ransomware vulnerability.
Staff training and disaster recovery planning are essential for preventing attacks and restoring operations quickly.

Ransomware and healthcare in 2025: key stats and headlines

It’s not just anecdotal. Data from the past year shows that ransomware attackers are zeroing in on healthcare, and the numbers are hard to ignore.

Healthcare leads all sectors in ransomware incidents

According to the American Hospital Association, healthcare had the most reported cyberthreats of any industry in 2024.
Fortinet’s 2023 data placed healthcare in the top five ransomware targets globally, and that’s trended upward ever since.

Threat actors are getting more aggressive

Today’s ransomware groups don’t just lock up files: they steal them, threaten to leak them, and go after backups too. This double-extortion tactic hits especially hard in healthcare, where the data is highly sensitive and often irreplaceable.

Small and midsize providers are getting crushed

While big hospitals grab headlines, many ransomware incidents are hitting smaller targets: rural hospitals, outpatient clinics, and medical billing services. These groups often lack the tools or expertise to prevent an attack, let alone recover from one.

Why healthcare is such a tempting target for ransomware

There’s no mystery here. Healthcare checks every box for cybercriminals looking to profit:

High-value data: Medical records, insurance info, Social Security numbers—everything a hacker needs to steal identities or sell on the dark web.
Critical uptime: Hospitals and clinics can’t afford downtime. That makes them more likely to pay a ransom quickly.
Outdated tech: Many organizations are running legacy systems or unpatched software, especially in imaging, diagnostics, or admin tools.
Third-party sprawl: From EHR vendors to pharmacy systems to IoT-connected devices, healthcare networks have a lot of potential entry points.

It’s a perfect storm, and the bad actors know it.

What ransomware attacks do to healthcare systems

The consequences of ransomware can go well beyond a locked screen or scary email.

Disrupted care: Ambulances rerouted, appointments canceled, surgeries delayed, entire EHR systems offline.
Major costs: The average cost of a healthcare ransomware attack is now in the millions when you add up downtime, fines, recovery, and legal action.
Reputation loss: Patient surveys show cyberattacks significantly damage trust, making patients less willing to share information or return for care.
Regulatory fallout: HIPAA violations can lead to steep penalties, audits, and lawsuits, on top of whatever damage the attack already caused.
Revenue loss: Healthcare organizations report an average of 17 days of system downtime after ransomware attacks, leading to losses around $1.9 million per day.

Nearly 70% of healthcare organizations hit by ransomware report extended system downtime, significant financial loss, or compromised patient care.

And it’s not just the big establishments that get targeted. Cybersecurity experts say that rural hospitals are actually prime targets because they have fewer resources to fight an attack. They’re quicker to pay a ransom to get their servers back.

Solutions that actually protect healthcare infrastructure

Preventing ransomware attacks isn’t just about having antivirus software. You need layered defenses that cover your infrastructure, your people, and your procedures.

Invest in HIPAA-compliant hosting

The foundation of your cybersecurity strategy should be a secure, compliant hosting environment. HIPAA-compliant hosting includes:

Full data encryption in transit and at rest (SSL and AES-256)
Signed Business Associate Agreements (BAAs)
Intrusion detection systems and activity logging
Role-based access control and multi-user permission settings
Encrypted backups with versioning and immutability

This kind of infrastructure is built specifically for covered entities, their business associates, and any application that stores or transmits electronic protected health information (ePHI).

Lock down your servers

Whether you’re hosting locally or virtually, your server environment needs to be hardened against modern attacks.

Use patch automation to stay current on OS and app vulnerabilities
Enable full-disk encryption and disable unused ports
Enforce MFA for all admin access
Implement firewall rules and VPN access to limit exposure
Log everything, and monitor for unusual behavior in real time

Perform regular risk assessments

You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. Healthcare orgs should:

Scan for vulnerabilities on public and internal systems
Simulate attacks to test your defenses
Document and prioritize fixes based on real-world impact
Meet the HIPAA Security Rule requirement for periodic evaluations

Train your team against phishing

Most ransomware attacks start with a well-crafted phishing email. Teaching your staff to spot suspicious messages, avoid risky links, and escalate concerns is one of the most cost-effective defenses you can implement.

Don’t just do an annual training. Build this into onboarding, do regular refreshers, and test with fake phishing campaigns.

Build and test your disaster recovery plan

When ransomware hits, every second counts. Your backup and recovery strategy should include:

Daily offsite backups with versioning
Offline or immutable storage options to prevent backup encryption
Quarterly restore testing
A care continuity plan for keeping critical services running during downtime

What to look for in a HIPAA-compliant server provider

Not all servers or vendors are built for healthcare. If you’re hosting patient data, choose a provider that offers:

A signed BAA without legal gymnastics
SSAE-18 or HITRUST-certified data centers
24/7 expert support
Secure login, access logging, and audit trails
Flexibility to scale your hosting as your needs grow

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Ransomware is still the biggest threat, especially double-extortion attacks that steal and encrypt patient data at the same time.

No system is 100% immune. But compliant servers come with built-in safeguards that dramatically reduce your risk and make recovery much faster.

You could lose access to critical systems, violate HIPAA regulations, and risk patient safety. Recovery often takes weeks, unless you’ve already prepared.

Daily backups are a minimum. They should be encrypted, stored offsite, and tested regularly. Immutable backups offer the best protection against ransomware.

No hosting arrangement can guarantee that your entire organization is compliant. Compliance is shared. ‘HIPAA-compliant hosting’ means that your hosting provider has taken every security step possible to make compliance as simple as possible.

Next steps for protecting healthcare against ransomware

Healthcare is the most-targeted industry for ransomware in 2025, and the risk isn’t going away. Every healthcare provider, from solo practices to regional hospital networks, needs a real plan to secure their infrastructure and patient data.

The next step is to upgrade to HIPAA-compliant infrastructure that prioritizes security, resilience, and real-time protection against evolving threats. Make sure your hosting and server provider is up to the task.

This is where Liquid Web comes in. We offer a variety of HIPAA-audited hosting environments, so you can get the security, compliance readiness, and server specs your organization needs. Choose Windows or Linux OS and the level of server management that best compliments your internal resources.

Click below to explore HIPAA-compliant hosting solutions or chat with one of our experts.