Premera said Tuesday hackers gained “unauthorized access” to its systems in a “sophisticated attack” that began May 4, 2014. Just last month,
health insurer Anthem disclosed a
major breach that may have affected as many as 80 million records.
The Premera attackers may have accessed several types of data for 11 million individuals, including: name, date of birth, Social Security number, mailing address, email address, telephone number, member identification number, bank account information, and claims information, including clinical information.
The customer information that may have been compromised dates back to 2002, Premera said.
The attack affected customers of Premera Blue Cross — which provides health plans in the Pacific Northwest and is part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association — as well as Premera BCBS of Alaska and affiliate brands Vivacity and Connexion.
The people affected may also include “Individuals who do business with Premera” and gave the company their email addresses, bank account numbers or Social Security numbers.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating the attack, Premera said, and the company also worked with
cybsecurity firm Mandiant to assess the situation.
Premera will mail letters to the 11 million people affected starting on Tuesday — those affected should receive a letter by April 20 — and those people will be eligible for two years of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. Premera is posting information and updates about the attack at
premeraupdate.com.
Repercussions from some data breaches are easily remedied, but victims of insurance company Anthem’s breach will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of their lives.
The insurance company, which is one of the nation’s largest and includes several major Blue Cross and Blue Shield brands, announced Wednesday that its database had been hacked,
exposing personal data on as many as 80 million records for current and former customers and employees. “The information accessed includes names, birthdays, social security numbers, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income data,” according to the company. There is currently no evidence that financial or medical information was compromised, Kristin Binns, a vice president for Anthem, said in a statement.
That’s a treasure trove of information, said Tom Gorup, security operations center manager for Rook Security. It’s enough to commit identity theft, or bypass security questions to lock you out of existing accounts. And the risk isn’t short term, like when a credit card number is stolen. “Just because the attacker stole the data today doesn’t mean they’ll sell it tomorrow,” he said. “They could sit on this information for years.”
(If there’s a silver lining, it’s that medical information wasn’t included in the theft. Had claims data, test results or other medical data been stolen, it could also have opened the door to bribery, said Kevin Epstein, vice president of advanced security and governance for security firm Proofpoint. Any number of salient health details, from mental health issues to addiction treatments, could have been leveraged against victims.)
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The Chinese government obviously thinks they can steal from us without any consequences and they’re probably right given what President Obama has done about in the last few years…which is virtually nothing, despite the increasing number of attacks and their severity. -Jack
The most effective thing we could do against them would be to ban Chinese imports. However can you imagine the whining when folks can’t go out and buy a new iPhone or flat screen TV?
What would you suggest the President do?
JIM, DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU ARE SAYING?! OMG…If we banned cheap Chinese imports those old American businesses that fled to China for low overhead might be forced into coming back to meet the needs of the American consumer. That would mean jobs and people with money to buy cars and houses and the next thing you know we might be prosperous again! Heck, we might surpass China as the worlds largest economy! We can’t have a resurgence of capitalism when the democrats have been working so hard to kill it and they are right at the point of victory!
Nah, cause the next thing you know we would be making our own military equipment, aircraft parts and even bullets…and not the Chinese. That would be a terrible thing to do to our debt holders.
Well now you are singing my song. Many have been in favor of strong tariffs for years. Historically tariffs are how the Federal Government was financed before income taxes. However with this free trade nonsense it’s no longer fashionable. I say bring it back, sounds you you might agree. Not only would it help restore American industry, jobs and fix our trade deficit. It would bring in needed revenue.
Here is a good article: http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/cruiserdude/blog/2012/10/why-we-need-tariffs-all-imports
And using our own steel to make safe bridges. Remember the Bay Bridge?
The Price of ‘Made in China’:
“The real problem with this deal is that it doesn’t take into account all of the additional costs that buying “Made in China” brings to the American table. In fact, this failure to consider all costs is the same problem we as consumers face every time we choose a Chinese-made product on price alone — a price that is invariably cheaper.
Consider the safety issue: a scary one, indeed, because China has a very well-deserved reputation for producing inferior and often dangerous products. Such products are as diverse as lead-filled toys, sulfurous drywall, pet food spiked with melamine and heparin tainted with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate.
In the specific case of bridges, six have collapsed across China since July 2011. The official Xinhua news agency has acknowledged that shoddy construction and inferior building materials were contributing factors. There is also a cautionary tale much closer to home.
When California bought Chinese steel to renovate and expand the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, for a project that began in 2002, problems like faulty welds by a Chinese steel fabricator delayed the project for months and led to huge cost overruns. Those delays eroded much of the savings California was banking on when it opted for the “cheap” Chinese steel.
There is a second reason not to buy “Made in China” products: jobs. The abiding fact is that steel production is heavily subsidized by the Chinese government. These subsidies range from the massive benefits of a manipulated and undervalued currency to the underwriting of the costs of energy, land, loans and water.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/opinion/the-price-of-made-in-china.html?_r=0
Yep, the bay bridge was a boondoggle and I agree the Chinese goods really are lousy, and sometimes dangerous! Slightly related…I heard the new flood pumps for New Orleans didn’t pass the stress test, but we’re going to pay for them anyway. Who makes these dumb decisions? Why don’t we have some sort of accountability?
Accountability?!
Atlas Shrugged….