Identity security for healthcare

Healthcare is one of the most targeted industries for ransomware, and the way in is almost always identity: compromised credentials, over-permissioned service accounts and stale accounts from departed clinicians. Once inside the directory, attackers move to clinical systems, EHR databases and medical device networks through group memberships and delegation chains nobody has time to audit between shifts.

The identity problem in healthcare

Clinical workstations are shared between shifts, so one machine might see 30 user sessions a day. Service accounts connect the EHR, PACS imaging, pharmacy dispensing and lab systems, and many got broad permissions at go-live that were never scoped down.

Multi-site health systems often grew through acquisitions, each bringing its own directory, naming conventions and delegation model, plus trusts and cross-forest service accounts nobody fully mapped. Meanwhile HIPAA demands documented access controls for every system that touches ePHI.

HIPAA and the access control gap

The HIPAA Security Rule (45 CFR 164.312) sets technical safeguards for electronic protected health information. Section 164.312(a)(1) requires access controls that restrict ePHI to authorized persons, and 164.312(d) requires person or entity authentication. The minimum necessary standard (164.502(b)) limits access to what's needed for a specific function.

Most healthcare organizations can show that access controls exist. Few can show they're enforced, monitored and fixed promptly when broken, and that gap is where audit findings pile up.

GraphnAI doesn't map findings to HIPAA controls or certify compliance. It gives you the evidence behind each finding.

How GraphnAI addresses healthcare identity challenges

Map the real access surface

The identity graph shows every path from an identity to the computers, groups and service accounts in your directory, including every permission your EHR, imaging and pharmacy integration accounts hold. You can see which access sign-in telemetry has validated and which is just a group membership from 2019.

Enforce minimum necessary with evidence

Over-Permission Analytics compares each identity with peers that share its domain, department and title. An ICU nurse with far more permissions than other ICU nurses is a finding, and so is a lab service account that holds far more than others in its role. Each finding comes with a deviation score, a peer baseline and a breakdown by permission type.

Detect credential attacks aimed at clinical access

The detection engine raises alerts for password spray against clinician accounts, brute force against service accounts that sign in to EHR databases, and Kerberoasting against integration accounts. Each alert shows what the account can reach and how many attack paths lead from it to Tier 0. It needs a collector that forwards your domain controllers' Windows security events.

Remediate without disrupting patient care with Select Fire™

Removing one service account permission might break the interface that sends lab results to the pharmacy system. Select Fire simulates the change first, so you see who loses access and what depends on it, and you can take that to clinical IT leadership as data. Safe mode writes a script that reports what it would do first. When GraphnAI runs a change, it records the before and after values, and you can undo most verified changes from the History tab.

Limit the blast radius of a directory compromise

An attacker who controls your directory controls sign-in to every system that trusts it. Critical junction analysis ranks the accounts where many attack paths meet, the shortest routes to your Tier 0 assets. Fix those first and you shrink what one compromised account can reach.