Of the 619 data breaches recorded by the Identity Theft Resource Center, 43 percent (267 breaches) occurred in the healthcare sector.
For the first time since the center began tracking breaches in 2005, the healthcare sector accounted for more breaches than the business sector (210 breaches, 34 percent of total).
ITRC attributes the large number of recorded healthcare data breaches to HHS data breach reporting regulations. The HHS requirements also led to 84 percent of healthcare breach reports including the number of records affected, compared with 40.3 percent of all breaches.
"This is significant because it demonstrates that regulations in this area have a powerful impact. When you compare the number of reported data breach incidents in other industry sectors that do not report the raw number of records affected, to those in the medical field, you see a much smaller percentage. Public awareness of the full number of records impacted allows us a more accurate understanding of the scope of the problem," said Eva Velasquez, ITRC president and CEO, in a news release.
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