INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Health insurer Anthem said hackers infiltrated its computer network and accessed a host of personal information about current and former customers, including their Social Security numbers, incomes and street addresses.
The nation’s second-largest health insurer said in a statement that it was contacting customers affected by the “very sophisticated” cyberattack. It did not say how many people were affected.
Anthem Inc., which recently changed its name from WellPoint, runs Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in more than a dozen states and covers more than 37 million people.
The Indianapolis-based insurer said credit card information wasn’t compromised, and it has yet to find evidence that medical information such as insurance claims and test results was targeted or obtained.
Anthem said Wednesday that the FBI is investigating and it has hired Internet security company Mandiant to improve its network defenses.
Information stolen also included names, birth dates, email addresses and employment details.
The FBI urged Anthem customers contacted by the insurer to report suspected instances of identity theft. It praised the company’s rapid response to the hack.
In 2013, the insurer agreed to pay $1.7 million to resolve allegations it left the information of more than 612,000 members available online because of inadequate safeguards. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said that security weaknesses in an online application database left names, birthdates, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, and health data accessible to unauthorized users.
The Health and Human Services Department said then that the insurer didn’t have adequate policies for authorizing access to the database, didn’t perform a needed technical evaluation after a software upgrade, and did not have technical safeguards to verify that the people or entities seeking access were authorized to view the information in the database.
Category: Science & Technology
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