Data Breach at Anthem

And it's a nice big data breach at that.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Anthem, the nation's second largest health insurer has admitted having a data breach involving over 80 million customers last week.

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.

Hasn't showed up on the black market yet.

If I were an Anthem customer, I'd be mightily upset right now.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

involving a major credit card company, a US federal government agency, and very recently, my credit union card was replaced by the credit union--with no detailed info supplied to me, just that my debit card may have been breached.

Whew!

If we could figure out a way to completely avoid plastic, we would. But most of our bills are paid 'by phone,' so it is impossible.

(We do manage to avoid online payments, except an occasional retail purchase using a prepaid gift/debit card.)

Thanks for the post.

Looks like this is one breach that we've successfully dodged!

Wink

Mollie

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

NCTim's picture

Target and Home Depot. Home Depot is on my blacklist. I didn't remember going there.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Tv news last night warned of a virus, usually contained in an email attachment, that takes control of your computer and everything in it. Hacker(s) are charging a ransom of 500 in Bitcoin to return control of the computer and let the owner back in. One police station paid. Said they had to. One woman threw her computer away and bought a new one rather than pay. Said she didn't trust them to really return her stuff.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

IdealistCynic's picture

If so it's fairly old news. That virus has been out for close to a year. It does lock up your files and demand a ransom of 500 bit coins. There is a program you can download to block it called Crypto Prevent; however it doesn't take care of an existing infestation of the virus; it only blocks new ones.

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NCTim's picture

$500 is a running start @ an upgrade.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

NCTim's picture

Really, no financial or medical data?

During a recent doctor visit, the nurse ran down through a list of medications including vitamin supplements. I could see the screen and just about everything that my wife has done for the past six months was there.

We have been dealing with four hosipital and doctor systems, Rex, WakeMed, Duke and Novant. Every one of them has a webportal with mecical records.

Anthem is primarily about the financial side. Maybe no medical records. But no financial information? I call bullshit.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Cordelia Lear's picture

Name, address and social security number you're toast anyway. Financial identity theft is right around the corner.

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"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone

Cordelia Lear's picture

WSJ now reporting:

Investigators see links to China as they probe a data breach in which tens of millions of Social Security numbers were taken from Anthem, the second-largest U.S. health insurer.

The probe, which includes teams from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and FireEye, remains in its early stages. Anthem discovered the incident last week. But people close to the investigation say some of the software and techniques used are similar to tools used almost exclusively in attacks linked to China.

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"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone