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HIPAA Breach Report for October 2017

Written by Hoala Greevy | October 06, 2017

The Paubox HIPAA Breach Report analyzes protected health information (PHI) breaches affecting 500 or more people as reported to the HHS in September 2017.

 

HIPAA Breaches Ranked by People Affected

 

Top Three Breach Types

  • Email breaches ranked the highest with 206,994 people's PHI hacked or stolen in September. That's up over 600% from last month's total of 33,334.
  • Network Server breaches ranked second with PHI of 182,782 people breached.
  • Desktop Computer breaches came in third with 18,317 people having their PHI breached.

Bottom Three Breach Types

  • Electronic Medical Record ranked as the lowest number of people's PHI being breached in September with 3,109.
  • Laptop breaches ranked second lowest at 4,869.
  • Other were the third lowest type of breach as ranked by people affected with 5,127.

HIPAA Breaches Ranked by Occurrence

 

 

The Most Common

  • Email came in as the most common breach in September with 13 reported breaches affecting 500 or more people's PHI.
  • Network Server came in as the second most common breach type with 6 incidents.
  • Desktop Computer and Other came in third with 5 breaches.

The Least Common

  • Laptop, Paper/Films and Electronic Medical Record rounded out the bottom of the category with 2 reported breaches each.

Takeaways

Email breaches took the top spot for both number of people affected and number of reported breaches. As a HIPAA breach vector, email has consistently ranked in the top quadrant this year.

 

Full Data

Click here to download the raw data.

 

About the Paubox HIPAA Breach Report

The Paubox HIPAA Breach Report analyzes breaches that affected 500 or more individuals as reported in the HHS Wall of Shame in September 2017.

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