Anthem Faces Class-Action Lawsuit After Security Breach
Anthem faces a class-action lawsuit after its security breach. The Inquisitr reported on the massive cyber attack that took place on Wednesday, affecting over 80 million of Anthem’s personal records. While the FBI continues to investigate the security breach of the nation’s second largest insurance company, the Indianapolis law firm.
Cohen and Malad are already organizing the class-action lawsuit for victims of the cyber attack.
On Thursday, CNN tweeted about the breach in an effort to begin informing possible victims of the hack.
Are you an Anthem customer? The insurance giant has been hit by a massive data breach: http://t.co/cf6uEfn6b1 pic.twitter.com/98dNUMU3pW
— CNN (@CNN) February 5, 2015
Even though credit card and medical information was not compromised, a long list of personal information and identity details were stolen.
The law firm’s announcement of the class-action suit on their website explained the situation.
“The lawsuit alleges that Anthem failed to safeguard the personal information of current and former clients allowing computer hackers access to information such as birthdates, social security numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, employee information, and income information.”
Irwin Levin, an attorney with Cohen and Malad noted that, “Anthem needs to get its act together. It needs to protect people’s data and it needs to provide whatever remedies are allowed by law.”
The premise of the lawsuit addresses a fundamental breach of contract by Anthem to its millions of affected victims.
“They formed a contract with people, and people paid premiums. … We’ll be suing them for breach of contract, for negligence and some other legal theories,” adds Levin.
Insurance policy holders were not the only ones affected by the breach. The CEO of Anthem, Joseph R. Swedish, clarified to the public that his own personal information and that of Anthem associates were also compromised during the large-scale security breach.
“We join you in your concern and frustration, and I assure you that we are working around the clock to do everything we can to further secure your data.”
Experts have concluded that the cyber hack took place as a result of Anthem not protecting the personal information data in its computers with encryption. Apparently, the company only applied encryption to the database’s medical information.
This leaves the door open for Cohen and Malad to pursue damages on behalf of the over 80 million people affected by the breach. Taking to Twitter to announce their class-action lawsuit, the firm is beginning to investigate claims for customers.
Anthem system hacked, customer data compromised. Our #classaction attys are investigating claims from customers http://t.co/E64jSkePNY
— Cohen & Malad, LLP (@CohenMaladLLP) February 5, 2015
The concern over cyber-security has resurfaced as many wonder what can be done to protect Americans from identity theft.
[Photo courtesy of Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images/ The New York Times]
