HIPAA Breach Report for August 2018

The Paubox HIPAA Breach Report analyzes  protected health information (PHI) breaches affecting 500 or more people as reported to the HHS in July 2018.

HIPAA Breaches Ranked by People Affected

Top Three Breach Types

• Email breaches ranked the highest with 1,630,318 people's PHI hacked or stolen in July. Email rose a spot from last month's report, where it ranked second.
• Paper/Films breaches ranked second with PHI of 318,839 people breached.
• Network Server breaches again came in third with 277,628 people having their PHI breached. This is the second consecutive month it's been ranked third in this category.

Bottom Three Breach Types

• Laptop ranked as the lowest number of people's PHI being breached in July with 3,371 breaches.
• Other was the second lowest type of breach as ranked by people affected with 5,515.
• Desktop Computer was the third lowest type of breach as ranked by people affected with 7,216.

HIPAA Breaches Ranked by Occurrence

The Most Common

• Email yet again took the top spot as the most common breach type in July with 13 reported breaches. This was the 5th month in a row Email took the top spot in this category.
• Network Server ranked as the second most common breach type with 6 breaches.
• Paper/Films came in third with 4 reported breaches in July.

Takeaways

For the 5th consecutive month, Email ranked first for Breaches Ranked by Occurrence. Email also ranked first for Breaches Ranked by People Affected. Month after month, the data clearly shows email continues to be a proven HIPAA breach point for malicious actors.

An alarming takeaway continues to be the surprising number of HIPAA email breaches occurring with customers who use Microsoft 365 for email service.

For example, Unity Point reported a second Email Breach this year, this time affecting 1.4M people. Their email platform: Microsoft 365.

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 July 2018.

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