Breach filing
ArchivedState of Alaska Department of Health & Social Services: 500,000 individuals, Sep 2021.
State of Alaska Department of Health & Social Services reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 22 September 2021. The filing records the organisation as a health plan in Alaska and lists 500,000 individuals affected, which makes it the 1st largest of the 32 Alaska filings on the register and the 31st largest of the 715 filings submitted nationally in 2021. Among the 2 Alaska filings made in 2021 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
500,000
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$80.0M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in AK
1st
of 32 Alaska filings
Rank in 2021
31st
of 715 filings nationally
Section F.1 / The filing
As posted by HHS OCR
Every value below is the portal's own field for this filing, plus its rank within the register.
- Covered entity type
- Health Plan
- Individuals affected
- 500,000
- Breach submission date
- 22 September 2021
- Submission year
- 2021
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Alaska (AK)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Alaska by size
- 1st of 32
- Rank in 2021 nationally
- 31st of 715
- Alaska median filing
- 2,008 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- AK-20210922-state-of-alaska-department-of-health-and
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Alaska and in 2021
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in a network server. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 21 of the 32 Alaska filings (66%) and on 76% of all filings submitted in 2021. Network Server appears on 44% of Alaska filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 38% of Alaska filings do involve one. At 500,000 individuals the breach is 249 times the Alaska median filing of 2,008 and 125 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It is one of 801 filings of 100,000 or more individuals.
As of 28 August 2026 the case is listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive. OCR's closing summary of the case is reproduced in full below.
Alaska's breach notification statute (Alaska Stat. 45.48.010 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: only when invoking the no-likelihood-of-harm exception (written notice to the AG). The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule ran alongside it: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery, which is the clock that put this filing on the portal.
Multiplying 500,000 individuals by IBM's $160 customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025, the figure the site's calculator uses) gives a modelled $80.0M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $96.0M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by State of Alaska Department of Health & Social Services. Because the filing is above the roughly 100,000-record range in which the per-record figure is reliable, the result is an upper bound, not an estimate: fixed costs are spread across far more records at this scale.
Section F.3 / OCR closing summary
The portal's archived description, in full
Written by the Office for Civil Rights when the case was closed and reproduced verbatim from the HHS export.
The State of Alaska Department of Health & Social Services reported that it experienced a cyber-attack involving the protected health information of approximately 500,000 individuals. Due to the criminal nature of various aspects of this case, it was referred to the Department of Justice for investigation and was accepted. The case was subsequently closed by OCR.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
500,000 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$80.0M
500,000 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$96.0M
500,000 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by State of Alaska Department of Health & Social Services to HHS, multiplied by IBM's customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025 Figure 6 and the 2026 edition). No cost has been disclosed by the entity for this filing; the figure is a planning estimate, not a fact about the breach. IBM's per-record figures come from mid-volume breaches and IBM cautions against applying them to breaches involving millions of records; the site's per-record page explains where the multiplication holds and where it breaks down.
Context: IBM's average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M in the 2026 report ($7.42M in 2025); the global average across all sectors was $4.44M in 2025.
Cost per record: method and limits / Healthcare breach cost, IBM 2026
Section F.6 / Notification clock
Alaska statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Alaska: Alaska Stat. 45.48.010 et seq.
Personal Information Protection Act
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- Only when invoking the no-likelihood-of-harm exception (written notice to the AG)
- Private right of action
- Limited: Actual economic damages only, capped at $500 per person
- Penalty
- Up to $500 per unnotified resident, capped at $50,000; treated as an unfair or deceptive practice
The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule runs alongside the state statute: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery.
Section F.7 / Peer filings
Alaska filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Alaska filings in 2021, topped up from other years where 2021 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OrthoAlaska, LLC | Healthcare Provider | 176,203 | 22 Sep 2023 | |||
| Anchorage Neighborhood Health CenterOpen | Healthcare Provider | 70,555 | 19 Nov 2025 | |||
| Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation | Healthcare Provider | 51,787 | 10 Apr 2023 | |||
| Fairbanks Cancer Care Physicians, P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 2,426 | 28 Jun 2021 |
Index / Companion schedules
13 HHS breach register
→Hub: every filing, by state, year and entity.
04 Biggest breaches
→Mega-breaches with primary-source cost figures.
Industry / Healthcare
→IBM 2026: $6.64M average, 13 years at #1.
Regulation / HIPAA penalties
→OCR enforcement tiers and the 60-day rule.
11 50-state laws
→Deadline, AG threshold and penalties per state.
Cost / Per record
→Where the per-record model is reliable.
Provenance
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, Breach Portal (breaches affecting 500 or more individuals), retrieved 2026-08-28. Public domain. Individuals affected and dates as reported by the covered entity.
Portal: ocrportal.hhs.gov breach report. Statutory basis: HITECH Act section 13402(e)(4): the Secretary must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. Breaches affecting fewer than 500 individuals are reported to OCR annually and are not posted, so they are not on this register. Status wording follows the portal's two tabs ("Cases Currently Under Investigation" and "Archive") as of 28 August 2026; a filing moves to the archive when OCR closes the case. Modelled costs on this site are a method applied to the reported count, using IBM Cost of a Data Breach per-record figures, and are never a cost disclosed by the entity. This row: hhs-breach-archive__2026-08-28.csv, export row 2937.
Corrections: if you represent a listed entity and the portal row has been amended, email [email protected] with the portal entry and we will re-pull the export.