Costly healthcare data breaches jump 32 percent

According to a new study by the Ponemon Institute, the number of data breaches in healthcare has increased by 32% in the past year, costing an estimated $6.5 billion annually. Sloppy employee handling of data and the increasing use of mobile devices are cited as the main causes for the breaches. The study also found that 41% of healthcare executives attribute data breaches to employee mistakes and half of the respondents said their organizations do nothing to protect information on mobile devices. Third-party mistakes account for 46% of the breaches reported in the study.