February 11, 2017 5 min read

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15.2m Americans had confidential personal and financial information compromised last year.

A vast database maintained by the US Government’s Department of Health and Human Services records every major data breach by a health clinic, doctor, dentist or hospital since 2009. Each entry chronicles how 500 or more confidential records were compromised in a single breach.

You will find stories of stolen laptops, leaked paper records, hackers stealing data and employees accessing and disclosing information that should have been beyond their reach - often by accident.

But those confidential records contain personal and financial information with a Dark Web market value that far exceeds stolen passwords and usernames.

So, researchers at data loss prevention specialists Safetica USA have explored the database to reveal the key findings across the United States last year.

The highest number of cases

There are two basic ways of looking at which states were worst affected by data breaches last year: by the number of cases, and by the number of individual records compromised. When it comes to the highest number of cases, the list of the worst-hit states closely follows population.