A study analyzing healthcare data breaches reported to the Office for Civil Rights between 2010 and 2024 revealed that hacking became the leading cause of such breaches in 2017 and has dominated since. The proportion of breaches involving ransomware remains unclear. In this period, protected health information (PHI) data breaches more than doubled, while hacking and IT incidents rose from 4% to 81%. Ransomware cases dipped from 31% of breaches in 2021 to 11% in 2024. Researchers suggested improving ransomware reporting methods to offer better insight into the issue.
Malware Defense 101 – Identifying and Removing Modern Threats
Cybersecurity threats in 2025 have become more sophisticated, with malware leveraging AI, evasion tactics, and polymorphic code. Data-stealing malware dominates, increasing by 180% in 2024.
