The data analysis I have done shows a ramp upwards in the number of health care breach notifications, versus other sectors. In fact, it shows educational and health care industries have far more breaches that the industries more commonly discussed in the news such as retail and banking.

Today UC Berkeley announced a breach by overseas attackers that lasted several months prior to detection:

The campus learned of the breach in April, immediately removed from service the exposed databases to prevent any further attacks, and alerted campus police and the FBI. In all, more than 160,000 individuals will be alerted, including those who had their Social Security numbers accessed and others who may be at risk for identity theft.

I believe the health care breach notices will continue to rise, not least of all due to the new federal breach notification requirement in the HITECH act that goes into effect in September 2009.