Η violation of the insurer company Anthem is probably the biggest hack in a health care provider we've seen, as 80 has been reportedly affected by millions of people with their personal data exposed to unauthorized individuals.
While a clear has not yet been formed picture as pieces of the puzzle are still being collected by investigators, the first conclusion seems to point to China as the place of origin of the attack.
A government-sponsored project or a crime project aimed at financial gain?
Η Anthem is the second-largest US insurance provider and offers services to an impressive number of customers, including workers in sensitive areas such as the defense of the country and government organizations in general.
Northrop Grumman Corporation, a global aerospace and defense company technology, uses the services of Anthem for the insurance coverage of its employees. Anthem's client list also includes the Boeing Company, which also has a defense unit.
With this information, the scenario of a targeted attack by a foreign government seems to make sense.
In an official statement announcing the incident, Joseph Swedish, president and CEO of Anthem, said the leaked customer information included names, birthdays, medical IDs, social security numbers (SSNs), addresses, email addresses post officeh, and details of employment and income.
He called the breach "a highly sophisticated external attack", suggesting that a group of highly skilled, resource-backed hackers may be behind the hack.
According to The Wall Street Journal, researchers say that Anthem's hack was carried out using malware that seems to have been used almost exclusively by Chinese cyberspies.
The attack on Anthem's systems is not an amateur job, that's for sure.
Reports from several news channels state that Anthem data stored on system were not encrypted, highlighting the fact that attackers could access plaintext files.
Encryption is used to protect stored information as well as during transfer from client to server. This ensures that unauthorized people can not use the information even if they are in their hands or at least they can make less use of them.
However, according to Anthem, there was an unauthorized activity in the 10 2014 27 2015 December XNUMX administrator's log-in, which continued sporadically up to XNUMX January XNUMX. The company's survey showed that the manager's log-in credentials had changed hands.
