#Anthem inc free

history fully merits the largest HIPAA settlement in history. An HHS Director overseeing the investigation said, 'The largest health data breach in U.S. While the pre-breach deficiencies impacted Anthem’s ability to reduce the likelihood of and quickly detect the Data Breach, the controls implemented subsequent to the Data Breach should improve Anthem’s ability to detect future breaches and enable Anthem to respond more effectively to a future attack than was the case in this instance.' įederal regulators also conducted an investigation of the Anthem data breach, resulting in a $16 million settlement between Anthem and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - by far the largest HHS data breach settlement. The Indiana DOI hired independent auditors to conduct a security assessment at Anthem, which concluded, 'While deficiencies within Anthem’s cybersecurity posture were noted by the Examination Team, these deficiencies were not, in our experience, uncommon to companies comparable to Anthem in size and scope. The lead investigator was the Indiana Department of Insurance (DOI) - Anthem's principal regulator, because Anthem is headquartered in Indiana. It also marks the starting date of the breach as February 18, 2014. It also concluded that Anthem had taken reasonable measures to protect its data before the breach and that its remediation plan was effective at shutting down the breach once it was discovered. Īn investigation conducted by several state insurance commissioners blames the breach on an attacker whose identity was withheld, and claims that the breach was likely ordered by a foreign government whose name was withheld. A writer from Harvard Law School suggested that this data breach might spark reform of security practices and government data safety regulation. The theft of the data raised fears generally about the theft of medical information. Responses Īnthem hired Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm, to review their security systems and advised people whose data was stolen to monitor their accounts and remain vigilant. One report suggested that all of this money could be consumed by the process of notifying customers of the breach. Anthem had a US$100 million insurance policy for cyber problems from American International Group. Persons whose data was stolen could have resulting problems about identity theft for the rest of their lives. ĭata from the attack is expected to be sold on the black market. Anthem did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement. However, Anthem faced several civil class-action lawsuits, which were settled in 2017 at a cost of $115 million.

Īnthem was not required by law to encrypt the data. The data was stolen over a period of weeks the month before the data breach was discovered. The compromised information contained names, birthdays, medical IDs, social security numbers, street addresses, e-mail addresses and employment information, including income data. According to The New York Times, about 80 million company records were hacked, and there is a fear that the stolen data will be used for identity theft. Michael Daniel, chief adviser on cybersecurity for President Barack Obama, said he would be changing his own password.

#Anthem inc free

Anthem has offered free credit monitoring in the wake of the breach.

Anthem says users' medical information and financial data were not compromised. Healthlink says that it was also a victim. uses to market its healthcare plans, including, Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Amerigroup, Caremore, and UniCare. According to Anthem, Inc., the data breach extended into multiple brands Anthem, Inc. On FebruAnthem raised the number to 78.8 million people whose personal information had been affected. disclosed that criminal hackers had broken into its servers and had potentially stolen over 37.5 million records that contain personally identifiable information from its servers. The Anthem medical data breach was a medical data breach of information held by Elevance Health, known at that time as Anthem Inc.