Breach filing
ArchivedMontana Department of Public Health & Human Services: 1,062,509 individuals, Jul 2014.
Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 7 July 2014. The filing records the organisation as a health plan in Montana and lists 1,062,509 individuals affected, which makes it the 1st largest of the 36 Montana filings on the register and the 4th largest of the 314 filings submitted nationally in 2014. Among the 2 Montana filings made in 2014 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
1,062,509
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$170M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in MT
1st
of 36 Montana filings
Rank in 2014
4th
of 314 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
- 1,062,509
- Breach submission date
- 7 July 2014
- Submission year
- 2014
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Montana (MT)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Montana by size
- 1st of 36
- Rank in 2014 nationally
- 4th of 314
- Montana median filing
- 6,000 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MT-20140707-montana-department-of-public-health-and
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Montana and in 2014
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 20 of the 36 Montana filings (56%) and on 12% of all filings submitted in 2014. Network Server appears on 31% of Montana filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 14% of Montana filings do involve one. At 1,062,509 individuals the breach is 177 times the Montana median filing of 6,000 and 266 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It is one of 149 filings on the register of one million 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.
Montana's breach notification statute (Mont. Code Ann. 30-14-1704 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches affecting Montana residents. 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 1,062,509 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 $170M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $204M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Montana Department of Public Health & Human 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.
Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, the covered entity (CE), experienced a server hacking incident due to an undetected and unpatched application code vulnerability, which allowed misuse of its information system resources for about 9 months. The incident affected over 1 million individuals' demographic, clinical, and/or financial information. Upon discovery, the CE immediately took the affected server offline, reported the incident to state and federal law enforcement, and conducted an investigation with assistance from an independent forensics firm. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. It also set up a call center and offered credit monitoring and identity theft services for all eligible individuals. OCR confirmed that the CE implemented a number of corrective actions as a result of this incident, including technical enhancements and safeguards to protect its information systems and network resources. OCR provided substantial technical assistance, and the CE implemented alternate safeguards, policies, and procedures to more effectively identify and remediate potential vulnerabilities in its server-hosted applications.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
1,062,509 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$170M
1,062,509 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$204M
1,062,509 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Montana Department of Public Health & Human 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
Montana statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Montana: Mont. Code Ann. 30-14-1704 et seq.
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches affecting Montana residents (When notice is provided to affected individuals)
- Private right of action
- No: Only the Montana Attorney General may bring enforcement actions
- Penalty
- Unfair or deceptive trade practice; up to $10,000 per violation, plus restitution
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
Montana filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Montana filings in 2014, topped up from other years where 2014 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Logan Health Medical Center | Healthcare Provider | 213,543 | 22 Feb 2022 | |||
| Kalispell Regional Healthcare | Healthcare Provider | 149,661 | 22 Oct 2019 | |||
| Western Montana Mental Health Center | Healthcare Provider | 86,758 | 14 Nov 2024 | |||
| Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch | Healthcare Provider | 543 | 24 Mar 2014 |
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 6092.
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.