2014 Was Landmark Year for Health Data Breaches Health Data Management (12/14) Slabodkin, Greg The year 2014 was a milestone year for health data breaches, with healthcare organizations accounting for about 42 percent of all major data breaches reported this past year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. At the start of the year, the FBIs Cyber Division warning industry that healthcare systems and medical devices were at risk for increased cyber intrusions. Law enforcement also expressed concerns that the healthcare industry was not as resilient to cyber intrusions compared to the financial and retail sectors. In August, Community Health Systems, which has 206 hospitals in 29 states, reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had been hacked, and that protected health information on 4.5 million patients had been compromised. The hackers, believed to be in China, copied and transferred non-medical patient identification data, including names, addresses, birthdates, telephone numbers, and Social Security numbers. This summer, Montana state officials noted 1.3 million individuals of a health data breach after a computer server was hacked. The potential cost of breaches for the healthcare industry could be as high as $5.6 billion annually, according to a Ponemon Institute study from early 2014. The healthcare industry is expected to continue to be haunted by hacks in 2015, particularly due to the growing number of access points to protected healthcare information and other sensitive data, and the increased use of wearable technology.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 02:00:21 +0000
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