HealthcareCISO

There were 37 healthcare data breaches of 500 or more records reported in April 2020, up one from the 36 breaches reported in March. As the graph below shows, the number of breaches reported each month has been fairly consistent and has remained well below the 12-month average of 41.9 data breaches per month. While the number of breaches increased slightly, there was a significant reduction in the number of breached healthcare records in April. 442,943 healthcare records were breached in April, down 46.56% from the 828,921 records breached in March. This is the second successive month where the number of exposed records has fallen. While this is certainly good news, it should be noted that in the past 12 months, 39.92 million healthcare records have been breached. Causes of Healthcare Data Breaches in April
As was the case in March, hacking and IT incidents were the leading causes of healthcare data breaches. Unauthorized access/disclosure incidents were the next most common causes of breaches, an increase of 77.77% from the previous month.

333,838 records were compromised in the 18 reported hacking/IT incidents, which account for 75.37% of all records breached in April. The average breach size was 18,547 records and the median breach size was 4,631 records. There were 16 reported unauthorized access/disclosure incidents in April. The average breach size was 6,171 records and the median breach size was 1,122 records. In total, 98,737 records were breached across those 16 incidents.

There were two theft incidents reported in April, both involving