Congress members warned of significant health data breach

WASHINGTON — Members of the Home and Senate have been knowledgeable Wednesday that hackers might have gained entry to their delicate private information in a breach of a Washington, D.C., health insurance coverage market. Workers of the lawmakers and their households have been additionally affected.

DC Well being Hyperlink confirmed that information on an unspecified variety of clients was affected and mentioned it was notifying them and dealing with legislation enforcement. It mentioned it was providing identity theft service to these affected and lengthening credit score monitoring to all clients.

The FBI mentioned it was conscious of the incident and was aiding the investigation.

A dealer on an internet crime discussion board claimed to have data on 170,000 DC Well being Hyperlink clients and was providing them on the market for an unspecified quantity. The dealer claimed they have been stolen Monday. The dealer didn’t instantly reply to questions posed by The Related Press on an encrypted chat web site.

It was not potential to substantiate the quantity claimed. Pattern stolen information was posted on the location for a dozen obvious clients. It included Social Safety numbers, addresses, names of employers, telephone numbers, emails and addresses. The AP reached one of many dozen by dialing a listed quantity.

“Oh my God,” the person mentioned when knowledgeable the data was public. All 12 individuals listed work for a similar firm or are members of the family.

In an e mail to all Senate e mail account holders, the sergeant at arms mentioned it was knowledgeable that the stolen information included full names of the insured and members of the family however “no different Personally Identifiable Info.”

It really useful that anybody registered on the health insurance trade freeze their credit score to forestall id theft.

In an emailed assertion, Rep. Joe Morelle of New York mentioned Home management was knowledgeable by Capitol Police that DC Well being Hyperlink “suffered a very giant information breach of enrollee info” that posed a “nice danger” to members, staff and their members of the family. “Presently the trigger, measurement, and scope of the information breach impacting the DC Well being Hyperlink nonetheless must be decided by the FBI,” Morelle mentioned.

The hack follows a number of latest breaches affecting U.S. businesses. Hackers broke right into a U.S. Marshals Service laptop system and activated ransomware on Feb. 17 after stealing personally identifiable information about company staff and targets of investigations.

An FBI laptop system was not too long ago breached on the bureau’s New York subject workplace, CNN reported in mid-February. Requested about that intrusion, the FBI issued an announcement calling it “an remoted incident that has been contained.” It declined additional remark, together with when it occurred and whether or not ransomware was concerned.

There was no indication the Well being breach was ransomware-related.