Breach filing
ArchivedThe Kroger Co.: 1,474,284 individuals, Feb 2021.
The Kroger Co. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 19 February 2021. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Ohio and lists 1,474,284 individuals affected, which makes it the 4th largest of the 276 Ohio filings on the register and the 8th largest of the 715 filings submitted nationally in 2021. Among the 23 Ohio filings made in 2021 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
1,474,284
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$236M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in OH
4th
of 276 Ohio filings
Rank in 2021
8th
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
- Healthcare Provider
- Individuals affected
- 1,474,284
- Breach submission date
- 19 February 2021
- Submission year
- 2021
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Ohio (OH)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Ohio by size
- 4th of 276
- Rank in 2021 nationally
- 8th of 715
- Ohio median filing
- 2,763 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- OH-20210219-kroger
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Ohio 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 162 of the 276 Ohio filings (59%) and on 76% of all filings submitted in 2021. Network Server appears on 46% of Ohio filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 29% of Ohio filings do involve one. At 1,474,284 individuals the breach is 534 times the Ohio median filing of 2,763 and 369 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.
Ohio's breach notification statute (Ohio Rev. Code 1349.19) requires notice to affected residents within 45 days of discovery or notification of a breach. Its attorney general threshold: no direct AG requirement (reporting agencies at more than 1,000 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 1,474,284 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 $236M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $283M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by The Kroger Co.. 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), The Kroger Co., reported that its business associate experienced a cyberattack affecting the protected health information (PHI) of 1,474,284 individuals. The PHI involved included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, health insurance information, diagnoses, lab results, medications prescribed, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In response to the breach, the CE provided complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services and discontinued its use of the file transfer appliance that led to the breach. The CE also implemented HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification policies and procedures. OCR provided technical assistance to the CE.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
1,474,284 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$236M
1,474,284 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$283M
1,474,284 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by The Kroger Co. 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
Ohio statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Ohio: Ohio Rev. Code 1349.19
- Notice to individuals
- Within 45 days of discovery or notification of a breach
- Attorney general threshold
- No direct AG requirement (reporting agencies at more than 1,000 residents)
- Private right of action
- No: No direct individual lawsuits; AG may investigate under ORC 1349.191
- Penalty
- Escalating civil penalties up to $10,000 per day for intentional or reckless non-compliance
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
Ohio filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Ohio 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CareSource | Business Associate | 3,180,537 | 27 Jul 2023 | |||
| Kettering Adventist HealthcareOpen | Healthcare Provider | 1,695,382 | 21 Jul 2025 | |||
| EyeMed Vision Care LLC | Business Associate | 1,474,000 | 28 Sep 2020 | |||
| Bricker & Eckler LLP | Business Associate | 420,532 | 2 Apr 2021 | |||
| Talbert House | Healthcare Provider | 304,000 | 10 Sep 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 3387.
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.