Breach filing
ArchivedUMass Memorial Health Care, Inc.: 209,048 individuals, Oct 2021.
UMass Memorial Health Care, Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 15 October 2021. The filing records the organisation as a business associate in Massachusetts and lists 209,048 individuals affected, which makes it the 11th largest of the 241 Massachusetts filings on the register and the 54th largest of the 715 filings submitted nationally in 2021. Among the 19 Massachusetts filings made in 2021 it ranks 2nd.
Individuals affected
209,048
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$33.4M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in MA
11th
of 241 Massachusetts filings
Rank in 2021
54th
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
- Business Associate
- Individuals affected
- 209,048
- Breach submission date
- 15 October 2021
- Submission year
- 2021
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- Yes
- State
- Massachusetts (MA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Massachusetts by size
- 11th of 241
- Rank in 2021 nationally
- 54th of 715
- Massachusetts median filing
- 3,900 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MA-20211015-umass-memorial-health-care
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Massachusetts and in 2021
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 76% of all filings submitted in 2021. Email appears on 20% of Massachusetts filings.
A business associate is recorded as present on the filing, as it is on 37% of Massachusetts filings. At 209,048 individuals the breach is 54 times the Massachusetts median filing of 3,900 and 52 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.
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 209,048 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 $33.4M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $40.1M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by UMass Memorial Health Care, Inc.. 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.
UMass Memorial Health Care, the covered entity (CE), reported that an employee was the subject of an email phishing scheme that affected the protected health information (PHI) of 209,048 individuals. The PHI involved included names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. UMass notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. In its mitigation efforts, UMass implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards. In addition, UMass retrained its workforce members on email security precautions.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
209,048 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$33.4M
209,048 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$40.1M
209,048 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by UMass Memorial Health Care, 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 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ReproSource Fertility Diagnostics, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 253,774 | 8 Oct 2021 | |||
| New England Dermatology and Laser Center, P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 58,106 | 11 May 2021 | |||
| Sturdy Memorial Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 57,379 | 28 May 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 2896.
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.