Breach filing
ArchivedMonongalia Health System, Inc.: 398,164 individuals, Dec 2021.
Monongalia Health System, Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 21 December 2021. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in West Virginia and lists 398,164 individuals affected, which makes it the 2nd largest of the 47 West Virginia filings on the register and the 40th largest of the 715 filings submitted nationally in 2021. Among the 9 West Virginia filings made in 2021 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
398,164
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$63.7M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in WV
2nd
of 47 West Virginia filings
Rank in 2021
40th
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
- 398,164
- Breach submission date
- 21 December 2021
- Submission year
- 2021
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- West Virginia (WV)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in West Virginia by size
- 2nd of 47
- Rank in 2021 nationally
- 40th of 715
- West Virginia median filing
- 2,643 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- WV-20211221-monongalia-health-system
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in West Virginia 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 31 of the 47 West Virginia filings (66%) and on 76% of all filings submitted in 2021. Email appears on 28% of West Virginia filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 36% of West Virginia filings do involve one. At 398,164 individuals the breach is 151 times the West Virginia median filing of 2,643 and 100 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.
West Virginia's breach notification statute (W. Va. Code 46A-2A-101 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: no AG notification requirement. 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 398,164 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 $63.7M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $76.4M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Monongalia Health System, 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.
The covered entity (CE), Monongalia Health System, reported that multiple employees were the victims of an email phishing attack affecting the protected health information (PHI) of 398,164 individuals. The PHI involved included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, health insurance and claims information, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. In response to the breach, the CE implemented additional technical safeguards and provided complimentary credit monitoring services to affected individuals.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
398,164 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$63.7M
398,164 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$76.4M
398,164 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Monongalia Health System, 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
West Virginia statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
West Virginia: W. Va. Code 46A-2A-101 et seq.
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- No AG notification requirement
- Private right of action
- No: No PROA; the AG has exclusive enforcement authority
- Penalty
- Unfair or deceptive act; penalties require repeated and willful violations, capped at $150,000 per breach
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
West Virginia filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among West Virginia 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monongalia Health System, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 492,861 | 28 Feb 2022 | |||
| Health Care Management Solutions, LLC | Business Associate | 254,000 | 14 Nov 2022 | |||
| Physician's Business Office, Inc. | Business Associate | 196,673 | 23 Sep 2022 | |||
| WomenCare, Inc. d/b/a FamilyCare Health Center | Healthcare Provider | 9,584 | 28 May 2021 | |||
| McCoy Consulting Services LLC | Business Associate | 5,665 | 13 Aug 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 2763.
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.