Healthcare Data Breach Costs Still Highest Among Industries

The average healthcare data breach cost is $355 per stolen record, the highest among surveyed industries, according to a recent Ponemon report.

The healthcare industry is no stranger to data breaches, and as technology continues to evolve, covered entities and their business associates need to be especially vigilant when it comes to keeping patient data secure. A healthcare data breach is also much more likely to cause significant financial damage than security incidents in other sectors, according to a recent study.

Ponemon 2016 Cost of Data Breach report, done in partnership with IBM Security, found that the average cost per stolen record in the healthcare industry was $355. This is over twice the average global cost of a stolen record of $158.

"Over the many years studying the data breach experience of more than 2,000 organizations in every industry, we see that data breaches are now a consistent 'cost of doing business' in the cybercrime era," Dr. Larry Ponemon said in a statement. "The evidence shows that this is a permanent cost organizations need to be prepared to deal with and incorporate in their data protection strategies"....