Aug 2019
32M Patient Records Breached in First Half of 2019, 88% Caused by Hacking
Jessica Davis of Health IT Security reports that more than 31 million patient records have already been breached in the first half of 2019, with hacking causing the majority of security incidents and breaching the most patient records, according to the latest Protenus Breach Barometer.
This year has already seen twice the amount of breached records from 2018’s total of 15 million, and there’s still another six months to go.
Researchers found a total of 285 incidents from January to June 2019. Hacking was the primary cause for the majority of these breaches with 168 hacking incidents (59 percent of publicly disclosed incidents) and 88 percent of all breached records or 27.8 million records.
We at Bio-Defense Network recognize that cybersecurity is not something most public health officials think about too much, but we believe it should be. And we encourage them to learn more about how to protect against attacks.