A Protenus Breach Barometer report found hackers accessed nearly 8.8 million patient records during August, according to Health IT News.
Here are seven points:
1. In August, there were 44 reported data breaches from 42 different incidents.
2. There have been 233 healthcare data breaches spanning January through August.
3. Of the incidents in August, 49 percent were insider incidents and 29 percent entailed hacking, malware or ransomware.
4. Hackers, however, were the culprit behind August's largest data breach, which comprised 3.6 million records.
5. In 19 percent of data braches, business associates or vendors were involved.
6. Last month, 37 data breaches involved healthcare provider organizations; payers reported two incidents and two incidents involved a business associate or vendor.
7. California had the most breaches on any state last month, with six incidents.
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