Verizon DBIR: Healthcare Fends Off Increased Social Engineering Attacks

The article reports that AI-enabled social engineering—especially phishing and increasingly prevalent pretexting—has resurged as a top driver of healthcare breaches per Verizon's 2026 DBIR and industry experts, exploiting operational urgency, supplier relationships, and high-value patient and credential data; it warns that generative AI increases lure quality and personalization and recommends prioritizing phishing defenses, multifactor authentication, layered identity controls, and continuous security awareness training.