More than half of the U.S. population may have been affected by a major health data breach reported to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2024, according to a STAT analysis of HHS Department of Health and Human Services records. It could reach 72 million people. Civil rights. This is a new record for the scale of a large-scale medical data breach, breaking only one set last year.
The majority of these healthcare data breaches (532 of 656 reported as of December 4) were the result of hacking and ransomware attacks, continuing a long-standing trend. HHS reports 264% increase in large-scale ransomware breaches since 2018, with seven health systems fined up to $950,000 for failing to protect patients’ protected health information from ransomware attacks was imposed.
But existing enforcement alone is not enough to stem the tide. “This number will continue to rise as more and more health IT vendors and startups in this space have access to the data,” said Andrew Marler, vice president of privacy and compliance for Healthcare. ” he said. Former OCR investigator at Risk Auditor Clearwater. HHS’ Office of Inspector General recently released a report revealing that OCR has not conducted an audit of compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule since 2017.
This article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers
Subscribe to STAT+ to unlock this article and get additional analysis of the technologies disrupting healthcare.
Already have an account? Log in
See all plans
To read the rest of this story, subscribe to STAT+.
Subscribe
