GoKawiilThe healthcare industry must get ahead of pervasive shadow AI risks that only exacerbate recovery challenges when ransomware and other disruptive cyberattacks inevitably hit.
Physicians, doctors, and clinicians use unsanctioned artificial intelligence (AI) tools and chatbots to boost efficiency in a job where shaving a second off could mean saving someone's life. But security teams can't monitor for potentially damaging threats if they don't know the tools are running in the environment, hence the term shadow AI.
When healthcare professionals use personal devices, unvetted tools, or public large language models (LLMs) they risk introducing new vulnerabilities and expanding attack surfaces. Those threats could lead to data leaks, breaches, and highly sensitive protected health information entering unmanaged environments.
Shadow AI is one risk that Joe Izzo, chief medical information officer for San Joaquin General Hospital, wants to get ahead of, he said during RSAC 2026 Conference last month. Healthcare professionals adopt AI tools to help with dosing, information retrieval, medical searches, and clinical summaries, said Izzo, noting that he's also observed the use of billing cycle assistant tools.
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Many of them are not dangerous or necessarily bad, added Izzo. But their unvetted uses, lurking in the shadows, pose heightened security challenges. Raising awareness and using AI securely will help when hospitals are in the throes of ransomware recovery and dealing with enough chaos as it is, he noted.
Shadow AI constitutes a two-fold problem, says Aviatrix CEO Doug Merritt. It doesn't just create a visibility gap; it also creates workloads with unlimited blast radiuses because of the significant privileges these tools require, particularly AI agents.
AI infrastructure isn't strong enough in some places currently, but shadow AI compounds the problem, Merritt tells Dark Reading. And environments for healthcare "hold the most sensitive data in any industry," he says.
“Use AI, Use AI”
Shadow AI activity is ramping up as burnt-out healthcare professionals, working under growing pressures, look to ease burdens. As in other industries, executives are also pushing employees to use AI to boost productivity.
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