Healthcare Data Breaches Lag Other Industries

Healthcare has seen its share of egregious data breaches in the past year, especially with the launch of the Office for Civil Rights website with posts of entities reporting breaches of unsecured protected health information (PHI) affecting 500 or more individuals.

However, healthcare may actually be the best industry at securing information, according to a study.

Healthcare accounted for the least amount of data breaches according to the Verizon and US Secret Service "2010 Data Breach Investigations Report." The industry represented just 3% of breaches, while "financial services" accounted for the most at 33%.

The full list of industries that accounted for the breaches in the study is:

• Financial services: 33%
• Hospitality: 23%
• Retail: 15%
• Manufacturing: 6%
• Tech services: 5%
• Business services: 4%
• Government: 4%
• Media: 4%
• Healthcare: 3%
• Other: 4%