Last week one of the country's largest health insurance companies, Anthem, Inc., announced that approximately 80 million customers had their account information stolen. This information included names, birthdays, medical IDs, Social Security numbers, street addresses, e-mail addresses, and income and other employment information. Anthem said that it "was the target of a very sophisticated external cyber attack."
The magnitude of the attack is staggering. Millions of people are affected with potentially highly adverse impacts to their financial and personal lives. Employers must stand the gate.
How well are you protected against a cyber attack?
Of course, this is not the only example of a sophisticated cyber attack, the very recent Sony situation and Target stores attack being high profile others. But it strikes very close to home for employer-sponsors of all types of employee benefit plans -- not just regarding their health plans--, and it should prompt the question, “how well are my plans and employees protected from these attacks?”
The attacks will not end --- Will you be ready for them?
No one thinks the attacks will end anytime soon or ever; there are those who will always exploit vulnerabilities. Now is the time to assess your own security and privacy weaknesses (and those of your service providers) and to establish security and privacy policies that protect you, your plans, and your employees from another Anthem.
The magnitude of the attack is staggering. Millions of people are affected with potentially highly adverse impacts to their financial and personal lives. Employers must stand the gate.
How well are you protected against a cyber attack?
Of course, this is not the only example of a sophisticated cyber attack, the very recent Sony situation and Target stores attack being high profile others. But it strikes very close to home for employer-sponsors of all types of employee benefit plans -- not just regarding their health plans--, and it should prompt the question, “how well are my plans and employees protected from these attacks?”
The attacks will not end --- Will you be ready for them?
No one thinks the attacks will end anytime soon or ever; there are those who will always exploit vulnerabilities. Now is the time to assess your own security and privacy weaknesses (and those of your service providers) and to establish security and privacy policies that protect you, your plans, and your employees from another Anthem.
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