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 picture has not yet been formed since researchers still collect pieces of the puzzle, the first conclusion seems to indicate 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 technology company, uses Anthem's services for its employee insurance coverage. Anthem's client list also includes 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 of the incident, Joseph Swedish, Anthem's chairman and CEO, said the leaked customer data included names, birthdays, medical IDs, SSNs, addresses, e-mail addresses, and details about 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 the Anthem hack was carried out using malicioussoftware that appears 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 outlets said that Anthem's data stored on the system was not encrypted, highlighting the fact that attackers could have access in plain text files.
Η encryption use to protect stored information, as well as during transfer from the client to the server. This ensures that unauthorized people cannot make use of the information even when they have it in their hands, or at least they can make less use of it.
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.
