Artificial intelligence is reshaping the healthcare sector attack landscape and fraud patterns, said Jim Van Dyke, senior principal of innovation at TransUnion.
As cybercriminals utilize AI tools, smaller medical practices, insurers and third-party vendors will especially face risk of falling victim to these attacks, Van Dyke said.
“AI is being used by the good operators, the bad operators and it has to do with what I think is the next biggest vulnerability, which is breaches, for healthcare especially, continuing to move down market to smaller entities,” he said.
Whether it’s the primary healthcare firms, an insurer, a third-party service provider, or the myriad of other organizations that make up the U.S. healthcare system, “we have to pass these records back and forth,” he said. “With all that complexity, we’re moving downstream to smaller healthcare firms,” he said.
“As the bigger entities get stronger, more effective at fortifying their enterprise… it’s all the smaller firms that are now becoming more prone,” he said.
“My concern is that these less sophisticated firms, whether it’s primary or secondary, that are down market, won’t have the level of sophistication required to fend off these AI attacks.”
In the interview (see audio link below photo), Van Dyke also discussed:
- Breach trends involving third-party supply chain partners versus breaches involving direct hacks on healthcare organizations;
- Why some hackers are becoming a lot more selective in the amount and type of records and identifiers they steal;
- Latest data breach class action lawsuit trends;
- Why incidents involving medical identity theft could rise in 2026.
Van Dyke is senior principal of innovation at TransUnion. Van Dyke co-founded Breach Clarity, which was acquired by Sontiq in 2021 and subsequently by TransUnion. He was the founder of Javelin Strategy & Research and served as its CEO for 12 years. He is a board member for the Identity Theft Resource Center, and was a former board member of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Van Dyke has also served as the primary expert witness in some of the nation’s largest data breach litigation cases.