In a letter to patients, The Center for Facial Restoration in Miramar, Florida advised that the Center had received an anonymous communication from cyber criminals who claimed to have breached the Center’s servers and obtained the complete medical records of up to 3,500 past and present patients that could be exposed to third parties. The letter states that the hackers demanded a ransom and that several of the clinic’s patients have also received ransom demands. According to Health IT Security, this is one of the first reported incidents where hackers targeted patients, rather than just the provider.
According to a study released at the end of 2019, healthcare data breaches cost as much as $4 billion in 2019 with over 93% of healthcare organizations experiencing a data breach since the third quarter of 2016. 57% of healthcare organizations have experienced more than five data breaches in that time period. The estimated cost of a data breach by hospital organizations who responded to the study averaged $432 per record.