In the last eight years, more than 7.1 billion identities have been exposed in healthcare data breaches, according to a Symantec report.
The April 2017 report, titled Internet Security Threat Report: Healthcare, details IT security trends. For the report, Symantec analyzed information from insurance data analytics service companies and HHS.
Here are five things to know.
1. Among service industries, healthcare represented the second most-breached sector in 2016. The businesses services sector had the highest number of breach incidents.
2. There were 1,209 healthcare breaches in 2016, representing 1.1 billion identities exposed.
3. By contrast, there were 1,211 healthcare breaches in 2015, representing 564 million exposed identities.
4. In 2016, the average number of identities exposed per healthcare breach was 927,000, up from 466,000 in 2015.
5. Last year, Symantec identified 464,841 ransomware attacks in the healthcare sector. The typical ransom amount was $1,077.
Click here to view the full report.