Unknown computer hackers have breached the HealthCare.gov sign-up system and hijacked the personal data of about 75 000 users. This site hosted the service called Federally Facilitated Exchanges (FFE) and is used for healthcare insurance use. An official government announcement was posted giving further details on the incident.
Unknown Criminals Hijacked Records of 75 000 Users from Healthcare.Gov
The HealthCare.gov service has been hacked by an unknown collective of criminals. This was announced via an official post on the site and also gives information about the fact that they have been able to hijack data of about 75 000 users. The site hosts the Federally Facilitated Exchanges (FFE) which is used by healthcare agents and brokers to enroll their clients into the medical healthcare plans known as “Obamacare”. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported anomalous system activity in Saturday which prompted the administrators to raise an alert and begin an investigation. The breach itself was confirmed last week.
The agents and broker accounts that were found to be producing the anomalous activity were deactivated. A follow-up action, made out of caution, is the temporary disable of direct enrollment pathways for agents and brokers. The government press release regarding the possible incident state that they plan to re-enable this option within a week. Citizens can still apply for the health care plans via the site or the marketplace call center. The agency has notified the FBI and all affected users by the data breach. At the moment there is no information about all victim users, the service administrators are attempting to find out exactly which user accounts are affected. The figures given (75 000 affected users) are also an estimate, depending on the final results this number may grow.
For more information you can read the official announcement.
Martin Beltov
Martin graduated with a degree in Publishing from Sofia University. As a cyber security enthusiast he enjoys writing about the latest threats and mechanisms of intrusion.
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