Why Healthcare Struggles With Insider Threats

When people think about cybersecurity, they often imagine hackers breaking in from the outside. But in healthcare, the bigger problem often comes from within. Insider threats have plagued hospitals, clinics, and health systems for years, and the numbers show that healthcare consistently leads all industries in insider incidents. The reasons are complex, but they boil down to human behavior, systemic pressures, and the unique nature of healthcare data.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Over the past five years, insider threats have accounted for a disproportionate share of healthcare breaches. According to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report, healthcare is the only industry where insiders cause more breaches than external actors, with insiders responsible for nearly 60 percent of incidents in 2020 and continuing to dominate through 2024. The Ponemon Institute’s 2023 Cost of Insider Threats report found that healthcare organizations saw insider incidents rise by more than 20 percent compared to 2019, with average costs exceeding 11 million dollars per incident. By 2025, healthcare still ranks at the top for insider driven breaches, far outpacing financial services and government sectors.

Why Healthcare Leads the Way

Several systemic factors explain why healthcare struggles more than other industries:

• Overworked staff: Nurses, doctors, and administrative staff often juggle long shifts and overwhelming workloads. Fatigue and stress lead to mistakes, like sending patient data to the wrong recipient or failing to secure records properly.
• Curiosity and HIPAA violations: Healthcare workers sometimes access patient records out of curiosity rather than necessity. High profile cases show staff snooping on celebrity records or family members’ files, which violates HIPAA and counts as insider misuse.
• Broad access to sensitive data: Unlike financial services, where access is tightly segmented, healthcare often grants wide access to electronic health records. This makes it easier for insiders to misuse data without immediate detection.
• Compliance culture gaps: While HIPAA sets strict rules, enforcement inside organizations can be inconsistent. Training fatigue and lack of monitoring tools mean staff may not take compliance as seriously as they should.

Types of Insider Threats in Healthcare

Insider threats in healthcare generally fall into two categories:

• Negligent insiders: The majority of incidents come from negligence. This includes misdirected emails, lost devices, or failing to follow security protocols. These are not malicious acts but they still expose sensitive patient data.
• Malicious insiders: A smaller but significant portion involves staff intentionally stealing or misusing data. Motivations range from financial gain to personal curiosity. For example, employees have sold patient records to identity thieves or accessed data to stalk individuals.

Roles Most Commonly Involved

Data shows that administrative staff and nurses are most frequently involved in insider incidents. They often have broad access to patient records and handle large volumes of sensitive information daily. Physicians are less frequently implicated, but when they are, the impact tends to be larger because of their higher access privileges.

The Bigger Picture

Healthcare’s insider threat problem is not just about individual negligence or curiosity. It reflects deeper systemic issues. The industry is under constant pressure to deliver care quickly, often at the expense of security. Staff shortages, outdated IT systems, and the sheer volume of sensitive data make healthcare uniquely vulnerable. Unlike retail or manufacturing, healthcare data is intensely personal and highly valuable on the black market, which raises the stakes.

Moving Forward

Reducing insider threats in healthcare requires more than just stricter rules. Organizations need to invest in better monitoring tools, segment access more carefully, and create a culture where compliance is seen as part of patient care rather than a burden. Training must be continuous and engaging, not just a yearly checkbox exercise. Most importantly, healthcare leaders must recognize that insider threats are not a side issue but a core risk to patient trust and organizational resilience.

Sources

1. Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2020–2024: https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir
2. Ponemon Institute, Cost of Insider Threats 2023: https://www.ponemon.org
3. IBM Security, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025: https://www.ibm.com/security/data-breach
4. American Hospital Association, Workforce Fatigue and Patient Safety: https://www.aha.org
5. HIPAA Journal, Insider Snooping Incidents: https://www.hipaajournal.com
6. Protenus Breach Barometer 2024: https://www.protenus.com
7. HealthITSecurity, Insider Threats in Healthcare: https://healthitsecurity.com