Cyber-attackers now responsible for a third of HIPAA data breaches

Cyber-attackers are now responsible for 31.42% of all major HIPAA data breaches reported in 2016, a 300% increase in the last three years, according to a report from TrapX Labs.

This is a big increase on 2014 when cyber attackers were responsible for 9.77% of major HIPAA data breaches, and this increased in 2015 to 21.11%.

The report noted that sophisticated and persistent cyber attackers are a big threat to the protection of patient healthcare data and critical healthcare operations and ultimately present a direct physical risk to the patients themselves.

The data also shows that attackers have evolved and are now increasingly targeting medical devices that use legacy operating systems that contain known vulnerabilities.