Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Institutions: Vulnerabilities, Impact, and Prevention Strategies: A Review

Kranthi Kumar Asike Parameshwar

Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Institutions: Vulnerabilities, Impact, and Prevention Strategies: A Review

Author(s)	Kranthi Kumar Asike Parameshwar
Country	United States
Abstract	Medical institutions are becoming targets of ransomware attacks, with the attacks increasing between 2016 and 2021, exposing personal health data of almost 42 million patients, and the attacks are becoming larger, with organizations having more than one hospital. Such attacks take advantage of ongoing vulnerabilities like phishing and ageing systems with resulting high disruption levels like patient census of 6114 before the attack to 7039 during attack and recovery in the adjacent emergency departments, long wait time, and high risks to patient safety. Effects go to fiscal losses due to ransom payments executed in the Bitcoin, operational backlogs and psychological stress on employees, with regional spillover effects jeopardizing the provision of acute care. This is a review of weaknesses, effects, and preventive measures, which shows some uniform tendencies of increasing intricacy of attacks, as well as the heightened requirements of interdisciplinary preparedness. It is important to note that since smaller, rural non-profit hospitals have fewer cybersecurity resources, they are disproportionately exposed to risks, and disruption with no ransom payment can be reduced through strategies such as offline backups and training of employees. The evidence highlights a zero-threat environment in which even the single cases can propagate regionally and fill the gap in the consolidated studies of healthcare-specific cyber resilience. It has implications such as policy requirements to federal fund vulnerable institutions, and clinician-based contingency planning to protect patient outcomes, but the measures have gaps in long-term recovery measurements and international comparative data.
Keywords	ransomware, healthcare, vulnerabilities, hospitals, phishing, legacy, systems, medical
Field	Sociology
Published In	Volume 17, Issue 1, January-June 2026
Published On	2026-05-27
Cite This	Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Institutions: Vulnerabilities, Impact, and Prevention Strategies: A Review - Kranthi Kumar Asike Parameshwar - IJAIDR Volume 17, Issue 1, January-June 2026.

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Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Institutions: Vulnerabilities, Impact, and Prevention Strategies: A Review

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