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Linkage Attack Vulnerability

Meaning

Linkage Attack Vulnerability describes the quantifiable risk that a purportedly anonymized or de-identified health dataset can be successfully re-linked to specific individuals by an external entity using publicly available information or other non-protected databases. This vulnerability arises when a combination of seemingly innocuous quasi-identifiers—such as age, gender, zip code, and specific diagnosis codes—is unique enough to pinpoint a patient within the larger population. In the sensitive domain of hormonal health, where unique treatment protocols or rare biomarker levels exist, managing this vulnerability is a paramount concern for protecting patient confidentiality. A high vulnerability score indicates that the de-identification method used was statistically insufficient.