Hacking incidents remained the most common cause of cybersecurity health information breaches last year.
Cybersecurity breaches hit an all-time high in 2021, exposing a record amount of patients’ protected health information (PHI), according to a report from cybersecurity company Critical Insights.
In 2021, 45 million individuals were affected by healthcare attacks, up from 34 million in 2020. That number has tripled in just three years, growing from 14 million in 2018, according to the report, which analyzes breach data reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by healthcare organizations.
The total number of individuals affected increased 32% over 2020, meaning that more records are exposed per breach each year. The total number of breaches only rose 2.4% from 663 in 2020 to 679 in 2021 but still hit historic highs.
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