Security breaches in the US since 2005 now total over 6,000 and the first few months of 2016 have resulted in 10 percent more breaches than the same period in 2015, according to the latest data from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC).
As of April 19, 6.2 million personal records have been compromised, ITRC said in a recent report, and the increase in theft of Social Security numbers appears to be propelling a wave of tax fraud. Since 2005, when ITRC began tracking security breaches, over 851 million records have been exposed.
“Tax refund fraud continues to rise creating almost unbearable issues for victims nationwide,” said Eva Velasquez, CEO of ITRC. “It is our belief that the 575 healthcare breaches since 2010 that have exposed more than 142 million social security numbers are contributing to this increase.”
In the past decade, ITRC found that breaches in the healthcare sector represented 16.6 percent of the 245.2 million records that include lost SSNs. These thefts make for “low-hanging fruit” for identity theft at tax time. Employee error/insider theft caused 371 breaches in the healthcare sector.
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Erin is the managing editor of Advisen’s Front Page News. She has been covering property-casualty insurance since 2000. Previously, Erin served as editor-in-chief of The Standard, New England’s Insurance Weekly. Erin is based in Boston, Mass. Contact Erin at [email protected].
