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On Thursday, February 26th Anthem, Inc. Communications sent notifications to its customers confirming that “On January 29, 2015 Anthem, Inc. discovered that cyber attackers executed a sophisticated attack to gain unauthorized access to Anthem’s IT system and obtained personal information relating to consumers who were or are currently covered by Anthem or other independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans that work with Anthem. Anthem believes that this suspicious activity may have occurred over the course of several weeks beginning in early December 2014. “
Wait, what? I see two things I find disturbing here. They discovered this information about a month ago and didn’t let their current or former members know until now?! As a former member I am floored to think that they just keep all of my information from years ago including dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health care ID numbers, home address, email address, employment information, including income data. These are the types of information that Anthem claims may have been accessed in the attack.
They claim there is no reason to believe that credit card, banking information, medial claims, test results, or diagnostic codes were targeted or obtained. I sure hope they are right! I cannot imagine anyone wants their medial information going public – that could be terribly embarrassing!
Do you have a client that has been a victim of refund fraud? This may be where the information was acquired. If they have any questions or have not received any correspondence from Anthem, a hotline has been established (877-263-7995) for this purpose. Let them know that Anthem has arranged to have AllClear ID protect their identity for two years for no cost.
