CyberInsecure.com

Daily cyber threats and internet security news: network security, online safety and latest security alerts
April 9th, 2008

WellPoint Customers Private Information Exposed

Personal information that may have included Social Security numbers and pharmacy or medical data for about 128,000 WellPoint Inc. customers in several states was exposed online over the past year. The latest security lapse stems from two servers maintained by an outside vendor that remains unidentified for now. The vendor specializes in data management.

WellPoint, which has had other data security issues in the past, recently learned about the problem, fixed it and is notifying customers. WellPoint had learned early last year that a server was improperly secured, and that information on about 1,350 customers may have been exposed online and was vulnerable to Internet search engines. The insurer fixed that breach quickly. The company recently learned that a second server had problems which exposed information for more than 128,000 customers to Internet access for about a year. That data had some code protection and couldn’t be found by people using search engines.

The nation’s largest health insurer by membership is offering free credit-monitoring services for those customers, but has received no reports of identity theft or credit fraud.

That problem has been corrected and the company is working with experts to improve its security. It is still using the same vendor.

Share this item with others:

More on CyberInsecure:
  • Honda Suffers Data Breach, Personal Information Of 283,000 Customers Exposed
  • Splunk.com Exposed Clear Text Users Passwords During Server Error
  • Private Data Exposed By Hackers In University Of Texas At Dallas
  • Multiple WordPress.com Servers Hacked, Confidential Code, Private Data Stolen
  • Facebook, MySpace Backdoor Exposed User Accounts

  • If you found this information useful, consider linking to it from your own website.
    Just copy and paste the code below into your website (Ctrl+C to copy)
    It will look like this: WellPoint Customers Private Information Exposed

    Leave a Reply

    Comments with unsolicited links to other resources will be marked as spam. DO NOT leave links in comments. Please leave your real email, it wont be published.

    *
    To prove you’re a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.