Posted on 02/05/2015 7:49:41 AM PST by AngelesCrestHighway
Anthem Inc., the country’s second-biggest health insurer, said hackers broke into a database containing personal information for about 80 million of its customers and employees in what is likely to be the largest data breach disclosed by a health-care company. Investigators are still determining the extent of the incursion, which was discovered last week, and Anthem said it is likely that “tens of millions” of records were stolen. The health insurer said the breach exposed names, birthdays, addresses and Social Security numbers but doesn’t appear to involve medical information or financial details such as credit-card or bank-account numbers, nor are there signs the data are being sold on the black market. Anthem, which offers Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in California, New York and other states, said it doesn’t know precisely how many people may be affected. So far, it appears that the attack detected last week is the only breach of Anthem’s systems, and it isn’t yet clear how the hackers were able to obtain the identification information needed to access the database said Thomas Miller, the insurer’s chief information officer.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
A broken record for Anthem - 2006 they left backup tapes laying around - lost a couple 200k clients worth of personal info. in 2008 they lost in 2008 they lost 125k records, in 2013 security was deemed so terrible they were fined 1.7mil. There are good places to cut corners to make a business profitable. Security isn’t one of them.
So many h-care organizations do not want to put money into securing their environment. They want the checkmark to say they are secure and compliant, but time and time again these “checkmarks” prove they are compliant, but not secure.
very frustrating, as a consumer.
(Oh...and not just healthcare.)
Time for RINOs to pass a law PROHIBITING the usage of SSN in ALL medical stuff. Take the usage of SSN away from the credit reporting agencies. Go back to the days when the only usage of a SSN was for tax reporting, NOTHING ELSE. That WAS the law 50 years ago.
This stuff is a GOLD MINE for Life Lock and the likes.
It’s printed on my SS card that it is not to be used for ID (but it’s an old card). ;-)
Printed those words on my card too. What a mess this government has allowed the private section to make.
Likely that “tens of millions” of records were stolen.
Or sold ?.
Right you all are that Healthcare organizations have not taken information security very seriously up until now.
They have relied on using their infosec policy binderware (check marks) to pass security audits.
Its only recently dawning on them that being compliant is not the same as being secure.
BTW: HIPAA doesn’t protect or assure the privacy of patient health information.
All of your personal health data is sold and shared between Thousands of healthcare related entities without your knowledge or consent.
See: the HC data map as follows -
Healthcare Datamining connections:
http://thedatamap.org/
http://patientprivacyrights.org/what-you-can-do-faqs/
(but it’s an old card). ;-)
They grow old with us - but they outlive us too, lol.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.