Breach filing
ArchivedWilmington Surgical Associates, P.A.: 114,834 individuals, Dec 2020.
Wilmington Surgical Associates, P.A. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 17 December 2020. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in North Carolina and lists 114,834 individuals affected, which makes it the 22nd largest of the 207 North Carolina filings on the register and the 69th largest of the 663 filings submitted nationally in 2020. Among the 16 North Carolina filings made in 2020 it ranks 4th.
Individuals affected
114,834
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$18.4M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in NC
22nd
of 207 North Carolina filings
Rank in 2020
69th
of 663 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
- 114,834
- Breach submission date
- 17 December 2020
- Submission year
- 2020
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- North Carolina (NC)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in North Carolina by size
- 22nd of 207
- Rank in 2020 nationally
- 69th of 663
- North Carolina median filing
- 3,679 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- NC-20201217-wilmington-surgical-associates-pa
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in North Carolina and in 2020
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 130 of the 207 North Carolina filings (63%) and on 69% of all filings submitted in 2020. Network Server appears on 45% of North Carolina filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 26% of North Carolina filings do involve one. At 114,834 individuals the breach is 31 times the North Carolina median filing of 3,679 and 29 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.
North Carolina's breach notification statute (N.C. Gen. Stat. 75-65) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches (Consumer Protection Division of 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 114,834 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 $18.4M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $22.0M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Wilmington Surgical Associates, P.A.. 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 covered entity (CE), Wilmington Surgical Associates, reported that it was the victim of a ransomware attack that affected the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 114,834 individuals. The ePHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, clinical information, and health insurance information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In response to the breach, the CE implemented new HIPAA policies and procedures and strengthened its technical safeguards.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
114,834 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$18.4M
114,834 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$22.0M
114,834 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Wilmington Surgical Associates, P.A. 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
North Carolina statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
North Carolina: N.C. Gen. Stat. 75-65
Identity Theft Protection Act
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches (Consumer Protection Division of the AG) (Concurrent with consumer notification)
- Private right of action
- Yes: Civil action under N.C. Gen. Stat. 75-16 as an unfair and deceptive trade practice; treble damages
- Penalty
- Treble damages for affected individuals; AG may seek injunctive relief, penalties, and 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
North Carolina filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among North Carolina filings in 2020, topped up from other years where 2020 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community Eye Care, LLC | Health Plan | 149,804 | 17 Dec 2020 | |||
| Healthcare Fiscal Management Inc. | Business Associate | 130,573 | 12 Jun 2020 | |||
| University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina, Inc. dba Vidant Health | Healthcare Provider | 77,942 | 14 Sep 2020 | |||
| Accu Copy of Greenville, Incorporated | Business Associate | 21,800 | 6 Jul 2020 |
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 3486.
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.