In recent months, there has seemingly been a significant uptick in the number of sizable
data breaches for hospitals and other healthcare providers that exposed personal, financial and medical data. Today, many victims are taking these organizations to court.
Many healthcare providers now face multiple lawsuits or class actions as a result of data breaches they suffered, and the cost for them can run into the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on their size, according to a report from the
North Bay Business Journal. That's because, given the size of many health systems these days, the number of patients that can potentially be exposed in such a breach is often massive.
Problematically, hospitals are making themselves more vulnerable to these breaches by increasing the amount of medical health records they store without properly beefing up their security standards, the report said.
Adam Levin, chairman for
IDentity Theft 911, has a blog about the ways in which these types of data breaches can affect not only consumers' finances, but also their medical history.
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