2017 Year-End Healthcare Breach Review

Cybersecurity Sense

In comparison to previous years, 2017 was a good year as the number of healthcare records compromised was significantly down. As of December 30, there had been 341 breaches reported, affecting a little less than 5 million individuals. This compares to 327 breach reports in 2016 but with 16.6 million individuals affected. When this information is contrasted with 2015 statistics, fewer breaches (268) were reported, however more than 113 million patients were affected.

So, why the significant drop in affected individuals? In this podcast, LBMC Information Security's Mark Fulford offers some leading theories for these statistics, as well as a quick rundown of the top five healthcare data breaches from 2017.

Listen, and discover these key takeaways:

• Out of the top five healthcare data breaches, the largest one was a result of insider activity—specifically, unauthorized access through stolen media by a now-former employee, while the remaining four were all related to ransomware.
• Health providers were responsible for most of 2017's data breach reports.
• As compared to Payers and Business Associates, far more records were compromised at provider organizations in 2017.