Ramsha Qureshi, Insoo Koo
The rapid digital transformation of healthcare has improved clinical efficiency, patient engagement, and data accessibility, but it has also introduced significant cyber security and data privacy challenges. Healthcare IT systems increasingly rely on interconnected networks, electronic health records (EHRs), tele-medicine platforms, cloud infrastructures, and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices, which collectively expand the attack surface for cyber threats. This scoping review maps and synthesizes recent evidence on cyber security risks in healthcare, including ransomware, data breaches, insider threats, and vulnerabilities in legacy systems, and examines key data privacy concerns related to patient confidentiality, regulatory compliance, and secure data governance. We also review contemporary security strategies, including encryption, multi-factor authentication, zero-trust architecture, blockchain-based approaches, AI-enabled threat detection, and compliance frameworks such as HIPAA and GDPR. Persistent challenges include integrating robust security with clinical usability, protecting resource-limited hospital environments, and managing human factors such as staff awareness and policy adherence. Overall, the findings suggest that effective healthcare cyber security requires a multi-layered defense combining technical controls, continuous monitoring, governance and regulatory alignment, and sustained organizational commitment to security culture. Future research should prioritize adaptive security models, improved standardization, and privacy-preserving analytics to protect patient data in increasingly complex healthcare ecosystems.