Digital Security Is Not a Priority for Healthcare

Data breaches in the healthcare industry happen more often than you might think.

The recent attack on Anthem exposed the personal information of about 80 million patients and is the largest data breach in the history of the industry. Financial institutions, retailers, and other organizations have all suffered major breaches, but the healthcare sector is an increasingly attractive target for hackers.

The Office for Civil Rights at HHS provides detailed information on breaches in which the data of more than 500 patients was exposed. According to our analysis of this database, the number of such incidents has increased from 13 in 2008 to 256 in 2013. The total number of patients affected by such privacy breaches increased from about half a million people in 2008 to nearly 9 million people in 2014.

Read more: http://brook.gs/1MjfG9D

Source: The Brookings Institute