According to the Trump administration, Healthcare.gov, the portal for the Affordable Care Act, has been hacked, compromising 75,000 consumer files. This represents only a small number of the nearly 12 million people enrolled in Obamacare but try telling that to those affected. Doubtful they’d be pleased.
Response from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
“Our number one priority is the safety and security of the Americans we serve. We will continue to work around the clock to help those potentially impacted and ensure the protection of consumer information,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “I want to make clear to the public that HealthCare.gov and the Marketplace Call Center are still available, and open enrollment will not be negatively impacted. We are working to identify the individuals potentially impacted as quickly as possible so that we can notify them and provide resources such as credit protection.”
Details about information obtained in the breach have not been announced. Signing up for Obamacare requires enrollees to supply Social Security numbers and other PII (personally identifiable information), and it is likely this is what the cyber criminals obtained. The CMS has stated that federal law enforcement has been notified and an investigation has begun.
Open enrollment for 2019 starts on November 1.
Nearly from day one, Obamacare has been criticized as being vulnerable to cyber attacks
According to the former Obama administration, Obamacare was breached shortly after it was implemented. In a 2015 report, the Health and Human Services inspector general noted that the system storing data had fundamental security risks.
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