Anthem Agrees Huge Fine for Data Breach

Anthem Inc., is one of the largest U.S. health insurance companies and it has agreed to settle litigation, over hacking that happened in 2015, for a total of $115 million. The hack compromised  79 million people’s personal information.

Anthem said in February 2015 that an unknown hacker had accessed a database containing personal information, including names, birthdays, social security numbers, addresses, email addresses and employment and income information. The attack did not compromise credit card information or medical information, the company said.

Some of the money will be used to pay for two years of credit monitoring for people affected by the hack. Victims are believed to include current and former customers of Anthem and of other insurers affiliated with Anthem through the national Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

“We are very satisfied that the settlement is a great result for those affected and look forward to working through the settlement approval process,” Andrew Friedman, a lawyer for the victims, said in a statement.

The Indianapolis-based company did not admit wrongdoing, and there was no evidence any compromised information was sold or used to commit fraud.

Companies do not want the bad publicity of a data breach so most do their best to protect against such events. But some don’t make enough effort and maybe this huge pay-out  will convince them that it’s cheaper to protect the data than it is to fight court cases.

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