Breach filing
ArchivedHighmark, Inc.: 239,039 individuals, Feb 2023.
Highmark, Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 10 February 2023. The filing records the organisation as a health plan in Pennsylvania and lists 239,039 individuals affected, which makes it the 20th largest of the 339 Pennsylvania filings on the register and the 97th largest of the 746 filings submitted nationally in 2023. Among the 40 Pennsylvania filings made in 2023 it ranks 5th. Highmark, Inc. submitted 1 further report on the same day (36,600 individuals); this page covers the largest and lists the others below.
Individuals affected
239,039
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$38.2M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in PA
20th
of 339 Pennsylvania filings
Rank in 2023
97th
of 746 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
- 239,039
- Breach submission date
- 10 February 2023
- Submission year
- 2023
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Pennsylvania (PA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Pennsylvania by size
- 20th of 339
- Rank in 2023 nationally
- 97th of 746
- Pennsylvania median filing
- 3,905 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- PA-20230210-highmark
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Pennsylvania and in 2023
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 228 of the 339 Pennsylvania filings (67%) and on 82% of all filings submitted in 2023. Email appears on 24% of Pennsylvania filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of Pennsylvania filings do involve one. At 239,039 individuals the breach is 61 times the Pennsylvania median filing of 3,905 and 60 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.
Pennsylvania's breach notification statute (73 Pa. Stat. 2301 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: more than 500 Pennsylvania 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 239,039 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 $38.2M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $45.9M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Highmark, 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.
Highmark, the covered entity (CE), reported that an employee was subject to an email phishing scheme that effected the protected health information (PHI) of 239,039 individuals. The PHI involved included names, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers, claims and financial information, diagnoses, medications, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. In its mitigation efforts, the CE implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect its sensitive data. All staff were provided additional cybersecurity training including instruction on proper identification of fraudulent email communications.
Section F.4 / Same-day filings
1 further report by Highmark, Inc. on 10 February 2023
Separate rows on the HHS portal with their own counts; this page covers the largest and lists the rest here rather than giving each its own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Highmark Inc | Business Associate | 36,600 | 10 Feb 2023 |
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
239,039 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$38.2M
239,039 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$45.9M
239,039 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Highmark, 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
Pennsylvania statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Pennsylvania: 73 Pa. Stat. 2301 et seq.
Breach of Personal Information Notification Act (amended by Act 33 of 2024)
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- More than 500 Pennsylvania residents (Without unreasonable delay (online portal))
- Private right of action
- Yes: Treated as an unfair or deceptive practice; consumers may pursue civil suits
- Penalty
- AG enforcement via civil actions, injunctive relief, civil 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
Pennsylvania filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Pennsylvania filings in 2023, topped up from other years where 2023 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Onix Group | Business Associate | 387,830 | 26 May 2023 | |||
| Lehigh Valley Health Network (blackcat) | Healthcare Provider | 248,359 | 15 May 2023 | |||
| Public Health Management Corporation | Healthcare Provider | 206,113 | 6 Jul 2023 | |||
| Commonwealth Health Physician Network - Great Valley Cardiology | Healthcare Provider | 181,764 | 12 Jun 2023 |
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 1955.
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.