HIPAA Breach Report for December 2019

The Paubox HIPAA Breach Report analyzes protected health information (PHI) breaches affecting 500 or more people as reported to the HHS. This report will cover:

• HIPAA Breaches Ranked by People Affected
• HIPAA Breaches Ranked by Occurrence
• Takeaways
• Full Data

HIPAA breaches ranked by people affected

Top three breach types

• Email breaches ranked in first place with 279,185 people's protected health information affected.
• Electronic Medical Record breaches ranked second with PHI of 118,503 people breached.
• Network Server breaches came in third with 106,312 people having their PHI breached.

HIPAA breaches ranked by occurrence

The most common

• Email took the top spot as the most common breach type in this month's report with 12 reported breaches.
• Electronic Medical Record and Paper/Films came in tied for second with 4 breaches each.
• Desktop Computer, Laptop, and Network Server all tied for third with 2 reported breaches each.

Takeaways

Here's a recap of the HIPAA Breach Reports compiled in 2019. HIPAA Breaches Ranked by People Affected

• Network Server ranked first in this category 7 times in the 2019 reports, or 58% of the time
• Email ranked first for this category 5 times, or 42% of the time
• No other breach vector took the top spot for this category in 2019

HIPAA breaches ranked by occurrence

• Email ranked first in this category 9 times, or 75% of the time. That is a remarkable statistic on the state of HIPAA Breaches in 2019.
• Network Server ranked first twice, or 17% of the time
• Other took the top spot once, or 8%

HIPAA Breach Trends in 2019

The data overwhelming points to two trends:

1. Email is the most common HIPAA breach vector in 2019. In other words, the data clearly shows that email is the most likely conduit for a HIPAA breach today.
2. Once a breach happens, the most damage (i.e., people's PHI records) occurs via Network Server breaches.

Full Data

About the Paubox HIPAA Breach Report