HIPAA Breach Report for December 2017

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

HIPAA Breaches Ranked by People Affected

Top Three Breach Types

• Other breaches ranked the highest with 19,487 people's PHI hacked or stolen in November. This is the first month this year to have Other as the top rank category.
• Paper/Films breaches ranked second with PHI of 15,946 people breached.
• Email breaches came in third with 10,708 people having their PHI breached.

Bottom Three Breach Types

• Network Server ranked as the lowest number of people's PHI being breached in November with 0 breaches.
• Electronic Medical Record breaches ranked second lowest at 769.
• Laptop were the third lowest type of breach as ranked by people affected with 1,409.

HIPAA Breaches Ranked by Occurrence

The Most Common

• Paper/Films ranked as the most common breach types in November with 6 reported breaches.
• Other came in as the second most common breach type with 3 incidents.
• Email and Laptop tied for third with 2 breaches each.

The Least Common

• Network Server was the least common breach type with 0.
• Desktop Computer and Electronic Medical Record rounded out the bottom with 1 breach each.

Takeaways

November was another relatively "quiet" month for HIPAA breaches. It would be interesting to get more data from HHS on what constitutes the Other category. As usual, Email breaches remained in the top 3 category, both for number of people affected and number of reported breaches.

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 November 2017. Minimize the risk of email getting you on the list with Paubox. 

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