Health insurance attack exposes personal information of 80 million customers

Synopsis

In February 2015, the company disclosed it was hacked by unknown attackers who accessed 80 million records from people using their health plans. The attack began in February 2014 with a phishing attack when a user in a subsidiary opened a phishing email containing malicious content.

Even the company's CEO was affected by the breach, which exposed birthdays, addresses, Social Security numbers and email addresses. The company said there was "no evidence" that credit card or medical information was exposed.

The subsequent investigations determined that a nation-state was behind the attack but they did not name the nation involved.

In June 2017, the company agreed to settle litigation over the incident for $115 million. The deal provided two years of credit monitoring and identity protection services to customers whose personal data was compromised.

Speak to the analyst

Want to discuss this case? We're offering a FREE 20 minute phone consultation to discuss this case and the implications it has for your organisation. Just select the time and date that works for you:

Analyst

Courtenay Brammar

Experienced global enterprise risk and governance professional. Previously Vice President at Morgan Stanley, Deloitte Risk Advisory practitioner and PRMIA steering committee member in both London and New York.

Additional services

We offer a range of cost-effective, fixed-price training programmes and consultant services derived from the unique insights gained from all our case study data.

If you'd rather we did the heavy lifting in developing a cyber incident response plan or lessons learnt training for your organisation underpined by our unique insight into the challenges faced and strategies implemented by organisations countering today's cyber security threats then please contact us here.