Report shows declining remediation rates and long-open vulnerabilities are testing healthcare cybersecurity readiness

BRENTWOOD, TN / ACCESS Newswire / July 14, 2026 / Fortified Health Security (Fortified), a Best in KLAS managed security services provider (MSSP) specializing exclusively in healthcare cybersecurity, today released its 2026 Mid-Year Horizon Report, a free, biannual publication. The report reveals a growing challenge for the healthcare sector, with organizations gaining clearer visibility into cybersecurity risk while struggling to fix critical gaps quickly enough to keep pace with the volume and severity of identified risk.

"Healthcare organizations are seeing their cybersecurity environments more clearly than ever, but that visibility is also revealing how much work remains," said Dan L. Dodson, chief executive officer at Fortified Health Security. "The findings in this year's Mid-Year Horizon Report show that risk is not just increasing in volume, it is becoming harder to resolve at the pace healthcare requires. The challenge now is turning awareness into action before those gaps affect care delivery."

Based on Fortified's rolling National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0 client assessment data, the report shows that healthcare organizations are identifying more risk as remediation struggles to keep pace. The findings highlight several trends shaping healthcare cybersecurity readiness:

• 6.4% risk remediation rate. Fortified's assessment data shows the overall risk remediation rate dropped to 6.4%, down from 23.3% year-over-year in Q1, signaling that healthcare organizations are identifying more risk while closing less of it.

• 60% increase in critical and high-risk findings. Over the same period, the average healthcare organization saw a 60% increase in critical and high-risk findings, creating a widening gap between cybersecurity visibility and remediation capacity.

• 6 times more cybersecurity supply chain risk management findings. Cybersecurity supply chain risk management findings are tracking toward 6 times the 2025 total, with 63% rated critical or high.

• 4 times more identity management, authentication and access control findings. Identity management, authentication and access control findings are tracking toward 4 times the 2025 total, with 64% rated critical or high.

• Remediation is becoming a defining measure of cyber resilience. As healthcare organizations improve visibility, the key challenge is shifting from identifying risk to prioritizing and reducing it quickly enough to protect operations and patient care.

"No healthcare organization moves forward alone," Dodson added. "The pace of change and the complexity of healthcare operations demand preparation built through partnership, communication and trust. As we look to the second half of 2026, the organizations best positioned for what comes next will be the ones aligning people, processes and priorities before the moment arrives."

The full report is available for download here.

About Fortified Health Security
Fortified is Healthcare's Cybersecurity Partner^® - protecting patient data and reducing risk throughout the healthcare ecosystem. A managed security service provider that has been awarded numerous industry accolades, including five consecutive years of Best in KLAS recognition, Fortified works alongside healthcare organizations to build customized programs that help clients leverage their prior security investments and current processes while implementing new solutions that reduce risk and increase their security posture over time. Led by a team of industry-recognized cyber experts, Fortified's high-touch engagements and client-specific process maximize value and deliver an actionable, scalable approach to help reduce the risk of cyber events. To learn more, visit www.fortifiedhealthsecurity.com.

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Media contact:
Dave Anderson
andersoni.com
dave@andersoni.com

SOURCE: Fortified Health Security