Most data breaches in health and human services are not an accident. That was my takeaway reading the new analysis (see Health Care Data Breaches Surge To Record Levels In 2024). The analysis reported that with hacking constituted nearly 80% of breaches in 2023.

In 2023, the number of reported breaches was a record 725, affecting over 133 million records. But 2024 brought another increase with 276 million records breached. This record number was largely due to the Change Healthcare incident, which alone compromised 190 million individuals’ data.

The authors of the analysis conclude that these shifts underscore an immediate need for executive teams to adopt advanced cybersecurity measures, such as encryption and two-factor authentication. With the rise in hacking…