Melissa D. Berry reports:
Stealing Medicare beneficiary identification numbers has become the latest goal for cybercriminals who see this data as even more valuable than stolen credit cards.
A South Florida man pled guilty in federal court in late-January to “conspiring to buy and sell more than 2.6 million Medicare beneficiary identification numbers” and other personal information. His guilty plea was one of the first prosecutions under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which makes it “illegal to buy, sell, or distribute Medicare beneficiary identification numbers without proper authority.”
As part of his plea, the defendant admitted he and his co-conspirators used “data mining” and “social engineering techniques” to collect Medicare beneficiary information that he then advertised and sold online.
Read more at Thomson Reuters.