Healthcare Breaches and the Rise of Hacking and IT Incidents

By Jacob Serpa, Product Marketing Manager, Bitglass

In the course of their day-to-day operations, healthcare organizations handle an extensive amount of highly sensitive data. From Social Security numbers to medical record numbers and beyond, it is imperative that these personal details are properly secured.

Each year, Bitglass conducts an analysis and uncovers how well healthcare organizations are protecting their data. In 2019's report, we detail the state of security in healthcare as well as shed light on recent breach trends in the vertical. Read on to learn more.

Bitglass' 2019 Healthcare Breach Report analyzes data stored in the Department of Health and Human Services' "Wall of Shame," a database wherein details about healthcare breaches are stored. By scrutinizing this data set, Bitglass uncovered information related to the size of healthcare breaches, the causes of healthcare breaches, the states in which these breaches occur, and much more, over the last few years. A snapshot of some of this data is provided below.

The rise of hacking and IT incidents

Over the last few years, the threat landscape has been shifting in healthcare. It used to be that lost and stolen devices were the leading contributor to exposed data. However, each year since 2014, the number of breaches caused by lost and stolen devices has decreased. At the same time, hacking and IT incidents have enabled more and more breaches each year – in 2018, they were the leading cause of breaches in healthcare.

The decreasing numbers of healthcare breaches

Despite the above, 2018 saw the number of healthcare breaches reach its lowest point in the last few years. Obviously, this is good news. While healthcare firms need to do something to address the growing number of hacking and IT incidents that are exposing their data, the fact that the overall breach number is down still bodes well for the industry's progress in securing sensitive data.

To learn more about the above findings as well as other interesting facts and figures, download the full 2019 Healthcare Breach Report.