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How many breaches has Anthem had?

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Dissent

While everyone’s still talking about the Anthem breach, a number of sites have noted that this was not Anthem/Wellpoint’s first breach. That’s true, but according to my records, this may be their first publicly disclosed hack.

In reverse chronological order, here’s what my blog posts from this site,  my two other sites, and other sources reflect, but treat this as a draft as there are some reports that are difficult to understand:

2015 – current breach (up to 80M)

Nov 2014 – email error by Anthem Blue Cross exposed some health-related information about members in the subject line. This may be the “The WellPoint Affiliated Covered Entities” incident affecting 1,464 members reported to HHS last year, but it’s not clear:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/oops-health-insurer-exposes-member-data/
https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf

Nov. 2013: 24,500 doctors’ names, addresses, and TINs (in some cases, SSNs) exposed online in .pdf file by Anthem Blue Cross of California:
http://www.databreaches.net/anthem-blue-cross-of-california-notifies-doctors-whose-ssn-were-displayed-in-a-pdf-file-online/

April 2013: Anthem notifies 1,678 members after call-center employee working for vendor Connexions stole their SSN:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/three-health-insurers-notifying-patients-after-learning-call-center-employee-stole-members-social-security-numbers/

April 2013: Anthem BCBS of Georgia sales representative used an incorrect group number based on an erroneous membership and data file, resulting in an impermissible disclosure of protected health information (PHI) to a  business associate. This breach affected approximately 5,497 individuals and included demographic information. This breach was not reported on my sites, but appeared in HHS’s breach tool
https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf

Oct. 2012: California settled charges against Anthem that alleged they printed Social Security numbers on letters mailed to more than 33,000 Medicare Supplement and Medicare Part D subscribers in April 2011, and had a second mailing breach between December 2011 and March 2012:
http://www.databreaches.net/insurance-letter-reveals-private-information/
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/california-settles-with-anthem-blue-cross-over-data-breach/

July 2011: Settlement of lawsuit that alleged that from approximately October 23, 2009, to March 10, 2010, WellPoint/Anthem Blue Cross improperly stored personal information and electronic versions of individual health insurance applications for over 600,000 customers, enrollees or subscribers on its web-based servers without username, password and encryption protections:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/settlement-of-yet-another-lawsuit-against-wellpoint-anthem-blue-cross-gets-preliminary-approval/
The Indiana AG also settled charges against them over that breach:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/indiana-attorney-general-reaches-settlement-with-wellpoint-in-consumer-data-breach/
And Wellpoint settled HHS charges over that breach for $1.7 Million:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/wellpoint-pays-hhs-1-7-million-for-leaving-information-accessible-over-internet/

July 2011: Settlement of another lawsuit that alleged that in 2007 and 2008, information was inadequately secured and could be accessed by the public without any password:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/follow-up-unicare-life-health-insurance-class-action-settlement/

August 2010: HHS adds a report from Wellpoint to the breach tool indicating that WellPoint experienced a hacking/IT incident in November 2009 that affected 31,700. It is not clear to me whether this part of the larger 600k exposure:
https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf

Feb. 2010: Former employee pleads guilty to ID theft involving at least 40 other employees’ PII:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/former-wellpoint-employee-pleads-guilty-to-mail-fraud-id-theft/

Nov. 2009: Approximately 850,000 healthcare professionals had PII on a stolen laptop:
http://127.0.0.1/pogo/databreaches.net/ct-ag-to-investigate-anthem-blue-cross-breach/

Feb. 2007: WellPoint learns that a CD with information on 75,000 customers has been lost in transit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/business/14insure.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Jan. 2007: WellPoint notifies 196,000 members that their PII (including SSN) was on backup tapes in a lockbox stolen from a vendor (Concentra).
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2007/02/15/Data-on-196000-insurance-customers-stolen/UPI-34661171554687/

And that list may not be complete. If you know of other breaches I’ve omitted from the chronology or of corrections to this draft, use the Comments section below.

Note that if you simply search HHS’s public breach tool for “Anthem,” you will only find two entries for them and another two entries for Wellpoint.

 

Related posts:

  • Transparency #FAIL: Why won’t Anthem/Elevance Health answer a simple question about breaches?
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