Are the Chinese after your health records? The government believes so, and a third cyberattack on a health care provider only adds fuel to this international fire.
The Washington, D.C., news source The Hill reports that, following a third major hack of a District of Columbia health data base, U.S. government officials are howling for Beijing to fess up to hacking.
The latest: a 1.1 million-record hack of CareFirst, a BlueCross provider based in the nation's capital. This one pales before the other two—Anthem and Premera invasions last year exposed a total of 90 million records. It occurred last June, and was just discovered this week when, The Hill reported, CareFirst did a security update because of concerns raised by the other two hacks.
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"In the case of Anthem and Premera, it's believed Chinese hackers were digging for information on high-level government officials and industry executives. There's evidence the two were even part of the same cyber espionage campaign," The Hill reported. "The U.S. government has repeatedly accused Beijing officials of orchestrating widespread digital efforts to pilfer U.S. trade secrets and gather intelligence on Americans."
Whether CareFirst is related to the others isn't known. And whether it raises questions about espionage or not, it certainly suggests health care providers continue to perform poorly when it comes to protecting client data. In this instance, however, the hacked info did not include Social Security numbers or financial information, The Hill reported.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
