Health Care Industry Most Suscpetible to Data Violations

With more and more patient data being stored electronically, health care agencies have become targets just as the requirement for more stringent and sophisticated data security becomes apparent.

Incidents regarding to phishing, hacking and malware were the cause of 31% of data security incidents during the year 2015, revealing a shift from the year 2014 when human error was the leading cause, in accordance to a new report.

Produced by the privacy and data protection team at BakerHostetler, the report observes data from more than 300 tragedies on which the firm advised in the year 2015.

The report looks at causes of incidents, industries most impacted, and what happens after a security incident is tracked--from containment, to notification, to regulatory investigations and even lawsuits.

"The most concerning finding was to observe that hacking/phishing/malware was the leading cause of incidents previous year, particularly the increase we saw in health care incidents," Lynn Sessions, partner with BakerHostetler’s privacy and data protection, told eWEEK. "We could feel the tide begin to turn in the year 2014, which continued into the year 2015. However, with the number of incidents we manage, it was surprising to see that was the leading cause."