Breach filing
ArchivedHarbor Health Services, Inc.: 17,380 individuals, Aug 2019.
Harbor Health Services, Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 9 August 2019. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Massachusetts and lists 17,380 individuals affected, which makes it the 57th largest of the 241 Massachusetts filings on the register and the 116th largest of the 511 filings submitted nationally in 2019. Among the 10 Massachusetts filings made in 2019 it ranks 2nd.
Individuals affected
17,380
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.78M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MA
57th
of 241 Massachusetts filings
Rank in 2019
116th
of 511 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
- Healthcare Provider
- Individuals affected
- 17,380
- Breach submission date
- 9 August 2019
- Submission year
- 2019
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Massachusetts (MA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Massachusetts by size
- 57th of 241
- Rank in 2019 nationally
- 116th of 511
- Massachusetts median filing
- 3,900 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MA-20190809-harbor-health-services
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Massachusetts and in 2019
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in email. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 151 of the 241 Massachusetts filings (63%) and on 61% of all filings submitted in 2019. Email appears on 20% of Massachusetts filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 37% of Massachusetts filings do involve one. At 17,380 individuals the breach is 4.5 times the Massachusetts median filing of 3,900 and 4.3 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It sits in the 10,000 to 99,999 band, which holds 1,938 filings.
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.
Massachusetts's breach notification statute (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93H) requires notice to affected residents as soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches (AG and Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation). 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 17,380 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 $2.78M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $3.34M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Harbor Health Services, Inc.. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.5 times the sector average.
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 covered entity (CE), Harbor Health Services, reported that an employee was the victim of an email phishing attack that affected the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 17,380 individuals. The ePHI involved included names and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice. In response to the breach, the CE strengthened its administrative and technical safeguards and retrained its staff on email security.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
17,380 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.78M
17,380 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$3.34M
17,380 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Harbor Health Services, Inc. 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
Massachusetts statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Massachusetts: Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93H
paired with 201 CMR 17.00 data-security regulations
- Notice to individuals
- As soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches (AG and Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation) (As soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay)
- Private right of action
- Yes: Chapter 93A claims, subject to a 30-day pre-suit demand letter requirement
- Penalty
- Up to $5,000 per violation; treble damages for willful violations, plus attorney fees
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
Massachusetts filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Massachusetts filings in 2019, topped up from other years where 2019 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doctors Management Services, Inc. | Business Associate | 206,695 | 22 Apr 2019 | |||
| Baystate Health | Healthcare Provider | 11,658 | 5 Apr 2019 | |||
| Massachusetts General Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 9,900 | 22 Aug 2019 |
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 4314.
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.