Since late 2009, the medical information of more than 155 million Americans has been exposed without permission through about 1,500 breaches. The healthcare sector is uniquely vulnerable to privacy breaches. Government regulations forced healthcare operations to adopt electronic health records (EHR) and other advances under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) One of the more common attacks against healthcare providers involves the use of ransomware, where patient records or hospital networks are hacked and locked down until a ransom is paid, typically in untraceable electronic currency, such as bitcoin.”]

