51 HIPAA Statistics Each Healthcare Entity Must Know in 2023 | Siege Tech

The HIPAA Privateness Rule (Well being Insurance coverage Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) is a healthcare cybersecurity framework that mandates safety requirements for all HIPAA-covered entities. HIPAA goals to guard affected person info within the public well being sector and promote stronger cybersecurity insurance policies. Since then, the HIPAA guidelines have been adopted world wide and utilized as federal legislation in the USA.

This text focuses on HIPAA statistics which can be important for all healthcare suppliers and establishments (together with pharmacies, psychological well being establishments, and healthcare operational companies) to know and find out about cybersecurity to forestall breaches. of information and scale back your cyber threat.

Overview of healthcare knowledge breaches

HIPAA-related incidents have grown quickly in recent times. Healthcare organizations should adapt to altering risk landscapes to guard particular person rights within the healthcare {industry} and guarantee privateness protections adjust to HIPAA and nationwide requirements.

Utilizing knowledge from earlier years, consultants predict that the digital panorama of the healthcare sector will proceed to face vital cyber threats.

Listed here are the widespread traits associated to HIPAA violation:

The healthcare sector has the best variety of safety breaches

In response to HIPAA Journal, the healthcare sector accounts for the best variety of safety breaches in comparison with different industries.

Most breaches contain PHI (protected well being info, often known as private well being info), together with delicate affected person and physician knowledge, lab take a look at outcomes, prescriptions, physician go to and immunization outcomes, or different info Personally Identifiable Data (PII) corresponding to names, addresses, emails, and social safety numbers. It is value noting that the PHI held by hospitals is commonly in digital type, often known as ePHI.

Essential knowledge breach statistics compiled from the HIPAA Journal, in addition to different sources corresponding to Verizon, TechJury, OCR (Workplace for Civil Rights), insurance coverage firms, legislation enforcement businesses, and different well being info know-how suppliers, present that healthcare suppliers must prioritize their cybersecurity efforts or threat dropping necessary knowledge and incurring huge fines.

Uncovered medical information proceed to rise quickly 12 months after 12 months

Many hospitals and healthcare techniques are nonetheless operating on legacy know-how, placing them at excessive threat of information breaches. One of the crucial widespread HIPAA violations that healthcare techniques are penalized for is failing to encrypt your digital units as a result of they nonetheless use outdated safety insurance policies.

In actual fact, many well being techniques would not have any cybersecurity processes in place, which may lead to vital fines and penalties from the US Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS).

One indicator of poorly protected techniques is the rising variety of affected person and medical information that proceed to be uncovered.

• Between 2010 and 2014, roughly 50 million affected person information had been uncovered. Within the subsequent 5 years, this quantity quadrupled.
• In 2021 alone, roughly 45 million medical information had been stolen or compromised. In 2022, this quantity will attain virtually 50 million information.
• 2015 was arguably the worst 12 months ever for healthcare cybersecurity, with greater than 133 million medical information uncovered. This was the results of three devastating knowledge breaches that affected main healthcare establishments together with Anthem Inc., Premera Blue Cross, and Excellus.
• In 2020, 39 distinguished healthcare industries suffered an information breach, with 663 main knowledge breaches.
• 2020 noticed greater than 29 million healthcare information uncovered as a result of knowledge breaches.
• In 2021, greater than 57% of healthcare organizations skilled greater than 5 knowledge breaches.
• In 2021, 713 main knowledge breaches had been reported affecting greater than 45 million folks, which is the best quantity for the reason that 2015 Anthem knowledge breach that affected 80 million folks.
• In February 2022, 46 healthcare knowledge breaches had been reported, affecting greater than 2.5 million folks, an 8% lower in incidents in January.
• HHS experiences that there have been 30 healthcare violations in March 2022, affecting 1.4 million folks.

Knowledge breaches involving 500 or extra medical information

• From March 2021 to February 2022, 723 knowledge breaches involving 500 or extra information had been reported, a file variety of knowledge breaches in a 12-month interval.

• In 2022, the typical fee of reported knowledge breaches involving 500 or extra information was about two experiences per day, almost double the quantity in 2018 (as of June 30, 2022).

Click on right here to see the 13 largest healthcare knowledge breaches in recent times.

The prices of prevention are excessive, however the prices of fines and HIPAA knowledge breaches are even greater

As a result of the digital age remains to be comparatively new, many industries, particularly healthcare, have but to prioritize cybersecurity. Many organizations choose to put money into enterprise operations or staffing moderately than guaranteeing knowledge safety, however latest breaches of the HIPAA safety rule have proven that failing to guard affected person knowledge and offering breach notifications might be extraordinarily costly.

Study extra concerning the penalties for non-compliance with HIPAA right here.

It’s virtually necessary to notice that healthcare establishments that don’t enter into enterprise affiliate agreements (BAAs) are additionally prone to vital HIPAA penalties.

Learn extra concerning the worst circumstances of HIPAA violation right here.

Malware and ransomware assaults are extraordinarily harmful

Small clinics and state hospitals are prone to knowledge breaches because of ransomware assaults wherein attackers compromise a hospital’s safety, crash techniques, steal crucial PHI, and demand cash to each launch techniques and belongings. knowledge.

Unhealthy actors then use the stolen medical knowledge to commit well being care fraud or promote it on the darkish net. Healthcare knowledge theft is a profitable cybercrime, as it may be as much as 50 occasions extra worthwhile than exploiting bank card info on common.

• Common ransomware funds in Q1 2022 had been $211,259, down 34% from This fall 2021. Hacker teams are speculated to focus on smaller hospitals which can be extra more likely to pay ransoms, as they typically have poor cybersecurity. Greater assaults additionally imply extra legislation enforcement and broader investigations.

• Within the first quarter of 2019, greater than 85% of hospitals that fell sufferer to ransomware assaults paid the required ransom. Nevertheless, as a result of robust suggestions from legislation enforcement to not pay the ransom, the variety of hospitals that paid the ransom dropped to 46% within the first quarter of 2022.

Worker Negligence Contributes to HIPAA Violations

Medical negligence, human error, and a common lack of cybersecurity practices in dealing with medical information are different main elements that result in HIPAA breach violations and privateness legislation violations. Not having robust knowledge privateness practices is often as a result of a scarcity of safety coaching or training.

Poorly skilled medical personnel have issue recognizing malicious exercise, corresponding to phishing makes an attempt, and are vulnerable to misplacing or mishandling medical information and digital units corresponding to telephones or laptops. This leads to the publicity of individually identifiable well being info, corresponding to affected person info and social safety numbers.

Underneath HIPAA, malpractice refers back to the improper dealing with of medical knowledge that leads to privateness violations of crucial well being info. Negligent practices might be divided into two sorts:

• Unintentional negligence involving lack of medical information or improper disclosure of confidential PHI
• Malicious negligence entails the deliberate mishandling of PHI by disgruntled staff, typically for private achieve. This will likely embrace a deliberate intent to promote, disclose, or view delicate knowledge.

Each varieties of negligence are thought-about an insider risk, so long as they entry and misuse digital medical information corresponding to ePHI (digital protected well being info), which can negatively have an effect on the healthcare supplier.

In contrast to negligence, nevertheless, the malicious use of medical information is a extra severe violation of HIPAA guidelines, and wrongdoers can face jail phrases or different legal penalties.

Listed here are some statistics associated to negligent insider buying and selling:

• In 2020, insider risk incidents involving unintended knowledge loss and malicious disclosure elevated 47% in comparison with 2018.

Study extra about the most typical HIPAA violations right here.

How UpGuard may help organizations adjust to HIPAA

Each healthcare establishment should perceive the significance of accelerating cyber dangers and the way failing to correctly shield knowledge can result in vital monetary, reputational, and operational injury. Extra importantly, affected person privateness and delicate medical knowledge have been breached and doubtlessly uncovered by the general public and risk actors.

UpGuard helps healthcare organizations, healthcare suppliers, and all associated enterprise companions develop into HIPAA compliant to assist forestall knowledge breaches from occurring. UpGuard helps the healthcare {industry} by serving to to handle safety postures and achieve higher visibility into third-party contractors utilizing our industry-leading assault floor administration and third-party monitoring software program.

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