As many as 80 million Anthem customers had their account information compromised earlier this week as a result of a Anthem Information Breach. Anthem was the victim of a “very sophisticated external cyber attack” according to Anthem president and CEO Jordan Swedish.
Stolen information appears to include names, birth dates, social security numbers, street addresses, email addresses, medical ID numbers and more. Furthermore, according to Anthem they didn’t have credit card information or medical records compromised in the Anthem Information Breach.
No HIPAA Info
The Anthem Information Breach does not fall under HIPAA regulations. Now, per ACA guidelines, Anthem no longer collects personal health information to determine rates. Anthem will be releasing notifications via email to those affected. As a result they will be providing credit and identity theft monitoring services for free.
This information breach involved group health insurance customers and individual medical insurance customers.
IMPORTANT:
ANTHEM WILL NOT BE SENDING CREDIT PROTECTION E-MAILS TO MEMBERS! Affected members will receive instructions via US MAIL NOT EMAIL.
IF you receive an e-mail from Anthem regarding credit protection THIS IS SPAM AND IT SHOULD BE DELETED.
Most importantly, security breaches like these no longer involve HIPAA or personal health insurance information because of the new Obamacare underwriting guidelines. This is mostly due to pre-existing conditions no longer affect the price of the policy. Therefore the insurance companies won’t (and can’t) ask new members about their medical history.
Future steps
Anthem has already been in touch with the FBI to begin an investigation. As a result they have hired the outside cyber security firm Mandiant to provide further investigation in to the issue. As a result Anthem distributed an open letter to customers. In it they acknowledge the issue and provide resources for customers: http://www.anthemfacts.com/
Furthermore the Anthem Information Breach comes on the heals of the cyber attack of Sony Pictures leaving their employees in the stone-age of technology. Personally we’re hoping Anthem fixes this issue quickly and completely.
