SS numbers of N.H. health care providers on stolen laptop
A laptop that may have contained sensitive information about thousands of New Hampshire health care providers has been stolen.How many victims? 10,000.
What type of personal information? Social Security numbers.
What happened? An employee of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield transferred a file that may have contained the Social Security numbers of N.H. doctors, dentists and other health care service providers to a personal laptop that was later stolen. Transferring the file to a personal computer was against the insurer's security policies.
Details: The file did not contain any information about N.H. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield members or their medical conditions.
Early last month it was revealed that the loss of a separate laptop belonging to Blue Cross put the sensitive information of 39,000 physicians at risk.
What was the response? Affected individuals will be offered free credit monitoring for one year.
Source: WMUR New Hampshire, www.wmur.com, “Insurer Says SS Numbers May Be On Stolen Laptop,” Nov. 4, 2009.
