March recorded 58 large healthcare data breaches — the lowest total for the month since 2022, HIPAA Journal reported April 23.
The publication analyzed data from the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights.
Here are five things to know:
- The number of individuals affected by healthcare data breaches declined for the third consecutive month in March, reaching the lowest monthly total since January 2023.
- In March 2025, 1,754,097 people had their protected health information exposed, stolen or impermissibly disclosed in a healthcare data breach, according to federal data. That figure represents a 23% decrease from the 2,277,555 individuals affected in February and a 43.8% drop from the 3,121,358 impacted in January.
- Excluding the Change Healthcare breach — which compromised 190 million records — the average monthly number of individuals affected by healthcare data breaches in 2024 was 7,369,560, with a median of 6,571,438. The March 2025 total of 1,754,097 represents a 76.2% decrease from last year’s monthly average.
- More individuals were affected by healthcare data breaches each month on average in 2024 than during the first three months of 2025 combined.
- Hacking and IT incidents accounted for 70% of the breaches reported in March.