The number of breached records reported in August totals an unsettling 8,804,608. While this total does not exceed the staggering 11 million records we reported in June, it once again demonstrates that PHI breaches continue to be a huge problem for a wide array of institutions.  Even more troubling, one breach reported this month began in 2008, taking more than eight years to be publicly reported.

The Protenus Breach Barometer is a monthly snapshot of reported or disclosed breaches impacting the healthcare industry, with data compiled and provided by DataBreaches.net.

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After a staggering 11 million patient records were breached in June, July's number of total records breached is back down to April’s levels, at 126,930 records (though nearly half of U.S. states had at least one healthcare data breach incident this month). New this month, we present an analysis of the amount of time a breach goes unreported, finding an average time lapse of two years, with as many as six years elapsing in one case.  

It’s been an intense summer for the healthcare industry. The annual cost to the healthcare industry attributable to breaches of patient information is now more than $6.2B.* Today, Protenus is launching its new monthly Healthcare Breach Barometer with data compiled and provided by DataBreaches.net. The Breach Barometer is a monthly snapshot of reported or disclosed breaches impacting the healthcare industry and includes data from HHS.