Industry: Hospital & Health Care
Service: Professional Services
Location: Americas
Organization Type: Private
Employees: 10,001+
Needs And Requirements:
The client, a healthcare operator managing a complex hospital network, required a focused internal penetration test to validate the security of critical internal systems. Their objective was to understand how far an attacker could progress inside the network, identify exploitable weaknesses, and ensure their infrastructure aligned with industry best practices such as PTES, NIST SP 800-115, and medical-sector cybersecurity guidelines. They needed a grey-box evaluation of select internal servers to uncover vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and risks that could compromise patient data, operational continuity, or internal services.
Main Challenges:
High Stakes Environment: Any compromise could lead to operational disruption, privacy breaches, and clinical service downtime.
Legacy & Sensitive Systems: Critical hospital systems are difficult to update or modify, increasing the likelihood of unpatched vulnerabilities.
Limited Internal Visibility: The client lacked a clear picture of which assets were most exposed once inside the network perimeter.
Solution:
Penetration Testing:
Hitachi Cyber performed a comprehensive grey-box internal infrastructure penetration test on selected internal IPs within the hospital network. Using methodologies inspired by PTES, NIST SP 800-115, and medical-sector cybersecurity practices, the assessment began with network scanning and enumeration to identify live hosts, services, and protocols. Targeted vulnerability scanning was executed using automated tools combined with manual validation to ensure accuracy and eliminate false positives.
The engagement included active interception techniques such as ARP spoofing to evaluate the risk of eavesdropping on sensitive traffic, along with credential collection and password testing against exposed or weak authentication services. Exploitation activities were carried out using industry-standard frameworks like Metasploit to compromise vulnerable systems, escalate privileges, and evaluate how far an attacker could progress after initial access.
Post-compromise steps assessed access to sensitive data, potential for lateral movement across hospital devices, and the exploitation of internal applications or misconfigurations. Privilege escalation paths were mapped to demonstrate how attackers could gain administrative access and compromise additional systems or services within the hospital network.
Outcomes:
The penetration test revealed concrete vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and internal pathways that could be exploited by a malicious attacker. The results provided the client with a clear understanding of risks related to credential weaknesses, network segmentation gaps, exploitable services, and insecure configurations across their internal systems. Through detailed remediation guidance, the client was able to strengthen internal controls, improve segmentation, enforce stronger authentication, and enhance monitoring for suspicious internal activities.
Next Steps:
The client is now prioritizing remediation based on the severity of the findings and is working with our team to validate corrective actions through targeted retesting. Additional cybersecurity hardening and periodic penetration testing are being considered as part of an ongoing security improvement program tailored to the hospital environment.
