Healthcare Penetration Testing

Healthcare organizations are among the most targeted sectors for cyberattacks in Canada. Hospitals, clinics, and health technology companies manage sensitive patient data, operate life-critical connected medical devices, and maintain complex IT environments that attackers actively seek to exploit. A successful breach can endanger patient safety, trigger regulatory penalties, and erode community trust. DarkPoint Security provides specialized healthcare penetration testing services designed to identify and remediate vulnerabilities across clinical systems, patient-facing applications, and medical infrastructure before attackers can exploit them.

Our team understands the operational constraints and regulatory landscape of the Canadian healthcare sector. Whether you need to satisfy PIPEDA safeguard requirements, comply with provincial health privacy legislation such as PHIPA or HIA, or validate security controls for a SOC 2 audit, DarkPoint delivers thorough, manual-driven healthcare cybersecurity assessments that protect patient data and support uninterrupted delivery of care.

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Cybersecurity Challenges in Healthcare

The healthcare sector faces a uniquely dangerous threat landscape. A successful cyberattack against a hospital or clinic can endanger patient safety, delay treatments, and disrupt the delivery of care. Healthcare organizations must contend with a growing range of cybersecurity risks.

  • Ransomware Targeting Hospitals — Healthcare is one of the most frequently targeted industries for ransomware. Hospitals operating under life-or-death pressures are attractive targets, and Canadian hospitals have experienced incidents that disrupted emergency services and forced patient diversions
  • IoT and Medical Device Vulnerabilities — Connected medical devices such as infusion pumps, imaging systems, and patient monitors often run on legacy operating systems with limited patching. Default credentials, unencrypted communications, and insecure firmware create persistent entry points on clinical networks
  • Electronic Health Record Exposure — EHR systems contain medical histories, diagnoses, prescriptions, and insurance details. A single compromised system can expose thousands of patient records, resulting in regulatory penalties and lasting harm to patient trust
  • Legacy Systems and Aging Infrastructure — Many healthcare facilities operate critical systems built on outdated technology that cannot be easily updated, leaving known vulnerabilities unpatched and exploitable
  • Remote Care and Telemedicine Expansion — The growth of telemedicine and remote patient monitoring has expanded the attack surface. Video platforms, remote access tools, and patient-facing applications may not have undergone rigorous security testing
  • Third-Party Vendor Risks — Healthcare organizations depend on numerous vendors for medical devices, software, cloud hosting, and data processing, and a compromise of any single vendor can cascade across the supply chain

Regular healthcare penetration testing is essential for identifying and addressing these risks before they result in a breach that compromises patient safety or exposes protected health information.

Compliance Requirements for Healthcare

Healthcare organizations in Canada operate under a layered regulatory framework that imposes strict obligations for the protection of personal health information. Penetration testing plays a critical role in demonstrating compliance and providing documented evidence that security safeguards are functioning as intended.

  • PIPEDA — Canada's federal privacy law requires security safeguards proportionate to the sensitivity of information held. For health data, penetration testing is a key technical safeguard demonstrating commitment to protecting patient information against unauthorized access
  • Provincial Health Privacy Laws (PHIPA and HIA) — Ontario's PHIPA requires health information custodians to take reasonable steps to protect personal health information. Alberta's HIA similarly requires administrative, technical, and physical safeguards. Penetration testing provides evidence that technical controls are effective
  • SOC 2 for Health Technology — Health tech companies handling patient data on behalf of providers increasingly require SOC 2 Type II compliance. Penetration testing provides evidence for the Security trust service criteria
  • Satisfying Safeguard Requirements — Across all frameworks, penetration testing validates that safeguards function as intended, providing documented evidence for regulators, privacy commissioners, and auditors

DarkPoint Security's reports are structured to satisfy each framework's documentation requirements, giving your compliance and privacy teams the assurance they need.

Our Healthcare Security Services

DarkPoint Security offers a full suite of penetration testing services tailored to the security challenges of healthcare organizations across Canada.

  • Web Application Penetration Testing — Test patient portals, EHR interfaces, appointment scheduling systems, and prescription platforms for injection flaws, authentication bypasses, access control weaknesses, and business logic errors
  • Internal Network Penetration Testing — Evaluate hospital internal networks, Active Directory environments, clinical segments, and medical device VLANs to determine the blast radius of a compromise and validate segmentation
  • External Network Penetration Testing — Assess internet-facing infrastructure including perimeter firewalls, VPN gateways, remote access portals, and publicly exposed services that attackers target for initial access
  • Wireless Penetration Testing — Test hospital wireless networks for misconfigurations, weak encryption, rogue access points, and insufficient segmentation between guest, corporate, and clinical networks
  • API Penetration Testing — Assess health data integration APIs including HL7 and FHIR interfaces, patient data exchange endpoints, and third-party integrations connecting clinical systems, laboratories, pharmacies, and insurers
  • Cloud Penetration Testing — Test cloud-hosted health platforms across AWS, Azure, and GCP for misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and insecure storage of patient data

Why Healthcare Organizations Choose DarkPoint

  • Healthcare Expertise — Our consultants understand clinical system architecture, health data workflows, and the operational sensitivity of healthcare environments, allowing us to identify industry-specific vulnerabilities that generalist firms overlook
  • Compliance-Ready Reporting — Our reports are structured to satisfy PIPEDA, provincial health privacy laws including PHIPA and HIA, and SOC 2 requirements, providing the documentation your privacy officers and auditors need
  • Manual-First Methodology — We perform hands-on healthcare penetration testing that uncovers business logic flaws in patient portal workflows, access control weaknesses in EHR systems, and privilege escalation paths across clinical network segments that automated scanners cannot detect
  • Certified Professionals — Our team holds OSCP, CEH, and CISSP certifications, bringing deep offensive security expertise to every healthcare engagement
  • Canadian Data Residency — As a Toronto-based firm, all testing data and reports remain within Canadian jurisdiction, addressing data sovereignty requirements under federal and provincial privacy legislation
  • Proven Track Record — Our team has disclosed CVEs and published original vulnerability research, demonstrating technical capability that goes beyond automated scanning tools

Frequently Asked Questions

PIPEDA requires security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of personal health information. Provincial laws such as PHIPA in Ontario and HIA in Alberta impose additional obligations on health information custodians. SOC 2 audits for health tech vendors also require evidence of regular security testing. Penetration testing satisfies the technical safeguard requirements across these frameworks.

Medical devices and IoT systems often run on embedded operating systems with limited patching capabilities. Penetration testing identifies vulnerabilities in network-connected devices, evaluates whether network segmentation isolates clinical devices from administrative systems, and tests for default credentials and unencrypted communications. This helps organizations mitigate the risk that compromised devices pose to patient safety.

Yes. DarkPoint Security tests patient-facing web portals, EHR integrations, appointment scheduling systems, and health data APIs including HL7 and FHIR interfaces. We coordinate with your IT and clinical teams to ensure testing does not disrupt patient care. Testing can be performed in staging or production environments with appropriate safeguards.

Healthcare organizations should conduct penetration testing at least annually, and after significant changes to IT infrastructure or clinical applications. Organizations that operate connected medical devices or provide telemedicine services should consider semi-annual or quarterly testing. Regular testing ensures that new vulnerabilities from system updates or expanded services are identified promptly.