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Why AI in Healthcare Has a Security Problem

Every health AI model is a decision engine — and an attack surface.

The Risks (with Evidence)

  • Adversarial examples derail medical imaging AI — systematic review across radiology (European Journal of Radiology).
  • Data poisoning, inversion & extraction are recognised clinical AI risks with mitigations like audit trails and continuous monitoring (García-Gómez et al.).

Why Healthcare Is Special

  • High stakes, legacy networks, and fragile systems — the WannaCry ransomware attack disrupted NHS care at scale (UK National Audit Office).

Framework for Defence

  1. Threat modelling & asset inventory
  2. Data integrity controls
  3. Access isolation
  4. Logging & audit trails
  5. Drift monitoring
  6. Adversarial testing
  7. Rollback plan

Aligned with the EU AI Act’s high-risk obligations: risk management, logging, human oversight (European Commission).

In healthcare, AI isn’t “just software” — it’s safety-critical infrastructure.