When Premera Blue Cross announced this week that it had uncovered evidence of a data cyber attack that may have compromised the health records of 11 million people, the news delivered a gut punch to the health insurance industry as a whole.

Premera was just the latest health insurer subjected to a major data breach. As more information is stored online, more personal information is at risk to such threats. But even as the at-risk data base grows, efforts to provide better security are also evolving.

A white paper from Intel Security (McAfee) and the Atlantic Council takes a look at the risk-reward balancing act that’s playing out as the nation attempts to reap the benefits of a rich data network against the welfare of millions of individuals who count on that data to be kept private.