Most data breaches tied to theft
The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’) database of major breach reports, those affecting 500 people or more, has tracked 944 incidents effecting personal information from about 30.1 million people, the government agency reports.
Most those records are the result of theft (17.4 million people), followed by data loss (7.2 million people), hacking (3.6 million), and unauthorized access accounts (1.9 million people). The recent breach at Community Health Systems in Franklin, TN, boosts the total number of records lost by 4.5 million. (The list is online at http://tinyurl.com/breachtool.)
In smaller breaches affecting fewer than 500 people, HHS received 21,194 reports of smaller breaches affecting 165,135 people in 2012, according to the department’s most recent report to Congress. (That report is available online at http://tinyurl.com/breachreports.)
