Anthem hack leaves room for scammers to pounce
If it wasn鈥檛 bad enough that the accounts of tens of millions of Anthem insurance customers were聽hacked, now scammers are trying to take advantage of the attack with phishing attempts.
Last week,听聽that the account information of as many as 80 million customers was stolen in a sophisticated hacking attack. Anthem is the second-largest insurance company in the United States.
Now security experts say scammers are sending spam email聽and making phone calls claiming to represent Anthem and offering a free year of credit-card protection service. 鈥淧hishing鈥� is an attempt to get victims to give away personal data like Social Security and credit card numbers.
On a聽聽set up to give victims legitimate聽information, Anthem said it will be contacting customers to let them know whether they鈥檝e been impacted by the hack.
鈥淯nsurprisingly, phishers took that as an invitation鈥� to blast Anthem customers with fraudulent email, security blogger聽. Krebs posted an example of a typical missive, offering a free year鈥檚 worth of credit monitoring services if the reader聽clicks an embedded link.
On its website, Anthem also says it knows of phone calls in which scammers claim to be from Anthem.
鈥淭hese emails and calls are not from Anthem, and no notifications have been sent from Anthem since the initial notification on Wed., Feb. 4, 2015,鈥� Anthem said in a voice recording on a phone line it has established in the wake of the hack.
The recording says Anthem will send letters via postal mail to current and former members who have been impacted by the attack.
Names, Social Security numbers, birthdays, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income, were all part of the Anthem data that was compromised, according to聽.
It does not appear that credit card information or medical records were compromised, according to Anthem.
The identity of the hackers who breached Anthem security has not been determined, although聽聽state-sponsored Chinese hackers may be to blame.
If you are concerned about your personal data, see NerdWallet鈥檚 tips for聽,听听补苍诲听.
Image via iStock.
If it wasn鈥檛 bad enough that the accounts of tens of millions of Anthem insurance customers were聽hacked, now scammers are trying to take advantage of the attack with phishing attempts.
Last week,听聽that the account information of as many as 80 million customers was stolen in a sophisticated hacking attack. Anthem is the second-largest insurance company in the United States.
Now security experts say scammers are sending spam email聽and making phone calls claiming to represent Anthem and offering a free year of credit-card protection service. 鈥淧hishing鈥� is an attempt to get victims to give away personal data like Social Security and credit card numbers.
On a聽聽set up to give victims legitimate聽information, Anthem said it will be contacting customers to let them know whether they鈥檝e been impacted by the hack.
鈥淯nsurprisingly, phishers took that as an invitation鈥� to blast Anthem customers with fraudulent email, security blogger聽. Krebs posted an example of a typical missive, offering a free year鈥檚 worth of credit monitoring services if the reader聽clicks an embedded link.
On its website, Anthem also says it knows of phone calls in which scammers claim to be from Anthem.
鈥淭hese emails and calls are not from Anthem, and no notifications have been sent from Anthem since the initial notification on Wed., Feb. 4, 2015,鈥� Anthem said in a voice recording on a phone line it has established in the wake of the hack.
The recording says Anthem will send letters via postal mail to current and former members who have been impacted by the attack.
Names, Social Security numbers, birthdays, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income, were all part of the Anthem data that was compromised, according to聽.
It does not appear that credit card information or medical records were compromised, according to Anthem.
The identity of the hackers who breached Anthem security has not been determined, although聽聽state-sponsored Chinese hackers may be to blame.
If you are concerned about your personal data, see NerdWallet鈥檚 tips for聽,听听补苍诲听.
Image via iStock.
