Hackers Stole Income, Immigration and Tax Data In Healthcare.gov Breach, Government Confirms (techcrunch.com)

Late last month, HealthCare.gov suffered a data breach exposing 75,000 customers. Details were sparse at the time of the breach, but have now learned that hackers obtained "inappropriate access" to a number of broker and agent accounts, which "engaged in excessive searching" of the government's healthcare marketplace systems. TechCrunch reports: [The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)] didn't say how the attackers gained access to the accounts, but said it shut off the affected accounts "immediately." In a letter sent to affected customers this week (and buried on the Healthcare.gov website), CMS disclosed that sensitive personal data -- including partial Social Security numbers, immigration status and some tax information -- may have been taken. According to the letter, the data included name, date of birth, address, sex, and the last four digits of the Social Security number (SSN), if SSN was provided on the application. Other information could include expected income, tax filing status, family relationships, whether the applicant is a citizen or an immigrant, immigration document types and numbers, employer name, pregnancy status, health insurance status, and more. The government did say that no bank account information was stolen.

Comments

Hmmm

[rmdingler]

Paper credentials and other imitable proofs of identity are going to be the casualty of virtually everyone's failure to secure the public's data.

It's probably time to invest in the companies at the forefront of biometric identification.

Re:Trump 2020

[Anonymous Coward]

You clowns think he's "hiding" something in his tax returns, lol. You know how I know you've never worked a day in your life? Because you don't know what a tax return is. It's the damn document you send to the government disclosing your financial position. You don't "hide" crimes in your tax returns, for god's sake. You can bet your bottom dollar that 0bama's corrupt and politicized IRS went over those things with a fine tooth comb, probably went back 50 years lol. Why didn't they leak anything about them? Probably because they show him paying far greater percentage of his income to tax than hypocrite socialist filth the likes of Bernie Sanders -- talk about shirking your social responsibility.

And tax returns? What about muh russia? Just going to try to pretend that whole thing never existed, eh? Sadly for you, there will need to be an urgent second special investigation into the first after it comes out and is a big nothingburger. Then a third investigation into *real* Russian meddling. What did 0bama get for his "more flexibility"? Why did he allow Russians to meddle in the elections on his watch, at the same time lying to the American people that the election could not be hacked, and ordering his cyber security agency to stand down and cease working on options to counter the attacks? Why did he screw up Crimea and Ukraine so so badly? Was it just incompetence, or was it part of his "flexibility"? Why was the uranium one deal allowed to go through?

ACA is 4.8x higher costs than pre-ACA

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you Democrats.

We pay more for ACA health insurance than any other monthly bills. It is higher than our car payments and higher than our mortgage. The increase for 2019 is 12.4% more than 2018.

Since 2014 (pre-ACA), our medical insurance costs are 4.8x higher.

We have ZERO medical conditions.

Fuck you Democrats. There is NOTHING "affordable" about this.

Re:ACA is 4.8x higher costs than pre-ACA

[Gavagai80]

It costs more partly because the insurance companies are required to actually deliver something now, instead of wiggle out of it as soon as you get sick (whatever your symptoms, they might be traceable to a preexisting condition you're unaware of). Congratulations on having no medical conditions. The whole point of insurance is to pay while you have no medical conditions so that your conditions will be covered if they develop later.

But if you want affordable, call your congresspeople and demand the option to buy into medicare at cost. Heck, put a 10% markup on young medicare buy-ins to help shore up the fund and it'll still be a fraction of the cost of private insurance.

Re:ACA is 4.8x higher costs than pre-ACA

[DigressivePoser]

Congratulations on having no medical conditions. The whole point of insurance is to pay while you have no medical conditions so that your conditions will be covered if they develop later

No, the whole point of insurance is to mitigate financial risk should a covered event occur. Obamacare has made health insurance premiums and deductibles a financial risk all in themselves.

Put SSN in a newspaper--it's safer

[kenai_alpenglow]

The Govt has compromised my personal data at least 4 times that they've let me know about. No telling how many times they hadn't told me or don't know that it's been compromised. I might as well put an add in a newspaper giving out my SSN--it would let fewer folks know. Remember this whenever the Gov wants to put your info in some type of database. It WILL get out. Many times.

Repeat after me:

[lamer01]

You DO NOT need insurance for non-life threatening conditions. Why do we need 10% or $25 co-pays and $2K-$5K deductibles to go get checked out for a runny nose? That is how we all got hoodwinked to think we need this kind of insurance. There should be plans that cover critical life threatening conditions like heart attacks/cancer. Everything else should out of pocket. You would quickly see prices drop for most services as people would actually price-shop for care for the non-life threatening ailments.

Re:Breaches are as common as ...

[CaptainDork]

The mod score can hit rock bottom, but the disgust at lack of action regarding both goes much deeper than -1.