Data Report · RedactSure Research
Chris Sowa · Founder, RedactSure
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Last updated
How Many Healthcare Breach Victims Were Exposed Through a Vendor?
More than half of the people affected by large healthcare breaches in 2025 and 2026, 123.9 million of 220.0 million, were exposed through a vendor. About 1 in 3 of these breaches comes through a business associate, year after year. An AI tool that handles patient data is a business associate too.
123.9 million. That is how many people were affected by large healthcare breaches in 2025 and 2026 that came through a business associate, the vendor a hospital, health plan or clinic hires to handle patient data on its behalf. It is more than half of the 220.0 million people affected by all large breaches reported to the Department of Health and Human Services in those two years, by RedactSure's count of the HHS breach portal. HIPAA requires a business associate agreement with every one of these vendors. The agreement sets out what happens after a breach; it does not keep the vendor from holding the data. As AI tools take on patient records, each one is another business associate holding that data.
Key findings
- More than half of the people affected by large healthcare breaches in 2025 and 2026, 123.9 million of 220.0 million (56.3%), were exposed in breaches that came through a business associate (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2026).
- About 1 in 3 large healthcare breaches comes through a business associate, year after year: 37.3% in 2023, 30.1% in 2024, 35.0% in 2025 and 35.8% in 2026 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2026).
- In 2025 and 2026, 496 of 1,403 large breaches came through a business associate. Network servers were involved in 365 of those 496, and email in 85 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2026).
- Hacking drives the pattern: 427 of 1,163 hacking and IT incidents in 2025 and 2026 (36.7%) came through a business associate, affecting 117.8 million people (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2026).
- In June 2026 a Texas health plan reported that an employee uploaded files containing protected health information to an artificial intelligence platform without approval, affecting about 1,500 people. It is the earliest breach on HHS's list described that way (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2026).
How do the last two periods compare?
| Period | Large breaches | Through a business associate | Share of breaches | People affected | In business associate breaches | Share of people |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 and 2024 | 1,486 | 501 | 33.7% | 473.3 million | 346.0 million | 73.1% |
| 2025 and 2026 | 1,403 | 496 | 35.4% | 220.0 million | 123.9 million | 56.3% |
The share of breaches that come through a business associate barely moves between the two periods. The share of people moves more, because a few very large incidents dominate the 2023 and 2024 total. The breach share is the steadier measure, and it says the same thing every year: about a third of large breaches start with a vendor.
How does each year compare?
| Year | Large breaches | Through a business associate | Share of breaches | Share of people affected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 745 | 278 | 37.3% | 64.8% |
| 2024 | 741 | 223 | 30.1% | 78.3% |
| 2025 | 805 | 282 | 35.0% | 63.8% |
| 2026 (through October 5) | 598 | 214 | 35.8% | 42.9% |
Where do vendor breaches happen?
| Location of breached information | Business associate breaches, 2025 and 2026 |
|---|---|
| Network server | 365 |
| 85 | |
| Paper and films | 24 |
| Electronic medical record | 21 |
| Other | 21 |
| Desktop computer | 6 |
A breach can involve more than one location. Email breaches through a business associate nearly doubled, from 44 in 2023 and 2024 to 85 in 2025 and 2026. Network servers and email are the systems an AI agent is most often connected to: the shared drives, inboxes and record systems where a vendor's tools read patient data.
Is AI showing up in breach reports?
HHS does not record AI as a cause of a breach, so the portal cannot count AI breaches directly. RedactSure read every breach description from 2023 to 2026 that mentions artificial intelligence, AI, chatbots, generative AI, large language models, machine learning, transcription or automation. One describes an AI tool: in June 2026 a Texas health plan reported that an employee intentionally uploaded files containing protected health information to an artificial intelligence platform without approval or authorization, affecting about 1,500 people.
That one case is a floor, not a count. HHS writes descriptions mainly for closed cases, and 726 of the 1,403 breaches reported in 2025 and 2026 have no description yet. It is also the earliest described case on the list, not necessarily the first that happened.
What do the numbers mean for healthcare leaders?
Under HIPAA, a vendor that creates, receives, maintains or transmits protected health information on a covered entity's behalf is a business associate (45 C.F.R. § 160.103). An AI tool that reads patient records to draft a letter, code a claim or summarize a chart fits that definition. A business associate agreement sets the vendor's obligations and the reporting duty after a breach; the vendor still holds the data, and the breach record shows how often that data gets out.
The control that changes the outcome is upstream of the contract: give the AI tool what the task needs without giving it the real patient identifiers. HHS's minimum necessary standard already asks covered entities to limit what they share to what the purpose requires (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.-b). For AI, that means the model works on tokens in place of names, member IDs and record numbers, and a named person approves any action that changes a record.
Methodology and limitations
The data comes from the HHS Office for Civil Rights breach portal, which lists breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more people. Its two lists, Under Investigation and Archive, were exported on October 27, 2026 and combined: 8,049 rows, 2 exact duplicates removed. Counts are by calendar year of submission. A breach counts as coming through a business associate when the portal marks Business Associate Present as yes, or when the reporting entity is itself a business associate. Every breach description from 2023 to 2026 containing any of eleven AI-related terms was read, and only descriptions that say AI was involved were kept.
The portal covers only breaches affecting 500 or more people, so "large healthcare breaches" means those breaches. Business Associate Present is reported by the covered entity and may be applied unevenly. The two lists overlap in time and only exact duplicates were removed. 2026 covers submissions through October 5. Individuals affected are the counts reported to HHS, and one person can be counted in more than one breach. Breached organizations are not named on this page; the full data is public on the HHS portal.
Frequently asked questions
What is a business associate under HIPAA?
A business associate is a person or company that creates, receives, maintains or transmits protected health information on behalf of a hospital, health plan or other covered entity: a billing company, a cloud host, a transcription service, a claims processor or an AI vendor. HIPAA requires the covered entity to sign a business associate agreement with each one before sharing patient data.
How many healthcare breaches involve a business associate?
About 1 in 3 large healthcare breaches reported to HHS, every year from 2023 to 2026. In 2025 and 2026, 496 of 1,403 large breaches came through a business associate, and those breaches affected 123.9 million people, more than half of everyone affected by large breaches in those two years.
Is an AI tool a business associate?
If it creates, receives, maintains or transmits protected health information on a covered entity's behalf, it fits HIPAA's definition of a business associate, and the covered entity needs a business associate agreement with the vendor. Whether a specific tool and contract meet HIPAA's requirements is a question for the organization's counsel and privacy officer.
How RedactSure Keeps Patient Data Out of the AI Vendor's Hands
A business associate agreement decides what happens after a vendor's breach. RedactSure changes what the AI vendor holds in the first place.
The environment that enforces this is built by RedactSure, an AI agent controls, governance and data protection company.
Before: an AI tool summarizing a chart reads the patient's name, member ID and diagnosis from the record system, and a breach at the vendor exposes all of it. Inside the governed environment: render-layer tokenization shows the model PATIENT_001 and MEMBER_001 in place of the identifiers, the summary still gets written, and a named person approves any change to the record under Supervised Delegation. The approach is aligned with PHI data-minimization requirements, and every screen the model saw, every action and every approval lands in the AI Control Record.
RedactSure is deploying now with enterprise and government customers.
Everyone else controls where data can go. RedactSure controls what the AI can see.
See it on your own workflow
If an AI tool will touch patient records, decide what it holds before it starts. Bring one clinical or claims workflow and see, with test values, what the model reads and who approves each action. Book a demo