2015 was rife with major data breaches. The three biggest data breaches affected a combined 101 million individuals. Indianapolis-based Anthem reported a breach affecting 78.8 million individuals; Mountlake Terrace, Wash.-based Premera Blue Cross suffered a breach affecting 11 million; and Rochester, N.Y.-based Excellus Health Plan reported a breach affecting 10 million individuals.
The healthcare industry is a growing target for data breaches. Royal Jay, a custom software development company, created an infographic based on Ponemon Institute's "Fifth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy and Security of Healthcare Data.” Here are five key findings and the infographic.
- In the first half of 2015, there were 888 data breaches, and 42 percent of the major breaches were healthcare-related. That equates to 34 percent of all healthcare records in the United States being exposed.
- Data breaches cost the healthcare industry $6 billion a year. The average cost for a healthcare organization that suffered a breach is $3.5 million, and is $398 per exposed, personally identifiable record.
- Medical identity theft victims spend an average of $13,500 to mitigate a breach. The costs include restoring their credit, reimbursing healthcare providers for fraudulent claims and correcting inaccuracies in their health records.
- While cybersecurity is a concern, half of organizations indicate having little or no confidence in their ability to detect patient data loss or theft. Forty-one percent of providers don’t encrypt data, and 23 percent of organizations don’t require both privacy and security training.
- The healthcare industry risks $305 billion in cumulative lifetime patient revenue in the next five years if cybersecurity does not become a priority.
Source: Royal Jay
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