July was n historic month when it comes to breaches of health care data involving incidents affecting 500 or more persons, with a total of more than 50 such breaches reported to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) affecting more than 35 million individuals.

july-biggest-month-for-hipaa-breachesAccording to HIPAA Journal, the “main reason for the increase in reported data breaches in July is the colossal data breach at American Medical Collection Agency,” which encompassed 22 health care organizations and 25 million records.

Phishing attacks and ransomware demands accounted for at least 35 of the attacks, with HIPAA Journal noting that this suggests “multi-factor authentication has not yet been implemented by many healthcare organizations.