In 2016, 328 individual healthcare breaches occurred, surpassing the previous record of 268 in 2015, according to Bitglass’ recent Healthcare Breach Report. As a direct result of the breaches, records of approximately 16.6 million Americans were exposed due to hacks, lost or stolen devices, unauthorized disclosure and more.

The good news, however, is that the overall number of compromised records has declined for the second year in a row, and early indications suggest that those numbers will continue to decline in 2017.

+ Also on Network World: Healthcare records for sale on Dark Web +

The report aggregates data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Wall of Shame—a database of breach disclosures required as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)—to identify the most common causes of data leakage.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.