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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When hospitals are hacked, the public hears about the number of victims -- but not what information the cybercriminals stole. New research from Michigan State University and Johns Hopkins University is the first to uncover the specific data leaked through hospital breaches, sounding alarm bells for nearly 170 million people.

"The major story we heard from victims was how compromised, sensitive information caused financial or reputation loss," said John (Xuefeng) Jiang, lead author and MSU professor of accounting and information systems. "A criminal might file a fraudulent tax return or apply for a credit card using the social security number and birth dates leaked from a hospital data breach."

Until now, researchers have not been able to classify the kind or amount of public health information leaked through breaches; thus, never getting an accurate picture of breadth or consequences.

The findings, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, encompass 1,461 breaches that happened between Oct. 2009 and July 2019.

[...] With a newfound understanding of what explicit data was leaked -- and how many over the last decade were affected -- the researchers offer hospitals and health providers suggestions on how to better protect patients' sensitive information.

The researchers suggest that the Department of Health and other regulators formally collect the types of information compromised in a data breach to help the public assess the potential damages. Hospitals and other healthcare providers, Jiang said, could effectively reduce data breach risks by focusing on securing information if they have limited resources. For example, implementing separate systems to store and communicate sensitive demographic and financial information.

John (Xuefeng) Jiang, Ge Bai. Types of Information Compromised in Breaches of Protected Health Information. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2019; DOI: 10.7326/M19-1759

Original Submission