One patient seeing another patient's records
Record, appointment, result or message IDs that aren't checked against the signed-in patient, carer or clinician.
Industries
Penetration Testing for Healthtech
Health data is some of the most sensitive data there is. We test how your product protects it, and give you evidence your customers and assessors can rely on.
Why it's different
Security testing for healthtech products
Healthtech products hold the kind of data people care about most: diagnoses, test results, prescriptions, messages with their clinician. When it leaks, the harm is personal and lasting, and the regulatory and contractual consequences follow quickly.
Healthtech also has more relationships to model than most software. Patients, carers, clinicians, care teams, administrators, partners and integrated systems all need different access, and that access changes as care relationships start and end. Most serious findings in health products live in those rules, not in outdated libraries.
Where healthtech testing differs
- Access follows relationships, not just roles. A clinician should see their patients, not every patient. A carer’s access may be time-limited. Testers check each relationship boundary with separate accounts.
- Integrations carry real data. FHIR APIs, lab and pharmacy integrations and partner feeds need tight authorization and minimal data in every response.
- Data leaves through side doors. Third-party SDKs, logs, exports and notifications can expose health information even when the main application is sound.
- Evidence matters. Hospital and payer security reviews ask for recent test results, and your risk analysis should reflect real findings.
We test with synthetic data wherever possible and agree how any real data will be handled before testing starts.
Common findings
What attackers go after
The issues we look for first in healthtech products. Typical severity shown; real ratings depend on your system.
Role and relationship mistakes
Clinicians reaching patients outside their care team, or carers and family members keeping access after it should end.
Health data APIs and integrations
FHIR and partner APIs that trust a token's audience or scopes too broadly, or return more data than the caller needs.
Uploaded documents and images
Scans, letters and photos stored at predictable URLs, served without authorization, or accepted without content checks.
Health data leaking to third parties
Analytics, session replay and advertising SDKs collecting page content, search terms or identifiers from health-related screens.
Mobile apps caching sensitive data
Results, messages or tokens stored unencrypted on the device, in backups, or in screenshots taken by the operating system.
Weak audit trails
Access to records that isn't logged well enough to show who viewed what, which you need to investigate a suspected breach.
Scope
Recommended scope
Where we usually start. We'll confirm the right scope with you on a scoping call.
Web Application Penetration Testing
Patient and clinician portals, admin consoles and every role that can reach health data.
API Penetration Testing
FHIR, HL7 and partner APIs, plus the backends of your mobile apps.
Mobile App Penetration Testing (iOS & Android)
Patient-facing iOS and Android apps, including local storage and third-party SDKs.
Cloud Security Testing (AWS, Azure, GCP)
Cloud accounts that store health data, backups and document storage.
FAQ
Healthtech testing questions
Will your testers see real patient data?
We strongly prefer a staging environment with synthetic data. If testing must touch production, we agree rules of engagement in writing, access only what is needed to prove an issue, and handle anything we see under our NDA and data-handling commitments.
Does HIPAA require a penetration test?
The Security Rule in force today doesn't name penetration testing, but it requires a risk analysis and periodic technical evaluation, and a pentest is a widely used way to support both. HHS has proposed an annual penetration testing requirement; check its current status before relying on either position.
Can you sign a business associate agreement?
Tell us during scoping if your engagement means we may encounter ePHI. We'll discuss the right agreement for your situation, and we design testing to avoid handling real patient data wherever possible.
Do you test medical devices?
We test the software, apps, APIs and cloud services around connected health products. Embedded hardware and firmware testing for regulatory submissions is specialist work; tell us your scope and we'll be clear about what we cover.
Need a pentest for an audit, a customer, or peace of mind?
Tell us what you need tested. You’ll get a fixed-fee proposal with tester-days and timeline stated, usually within a few days of the scoping call.