Anthem Inc. is warning customers about phone and email scams following the massive data breach at the company.
Anthem (NYSE: ANTM), the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said Feb. 4 that as many as 80 million customers have had their account information stolen. In California alone, millions of former and current Anthem customers could be affected.
A new message on Anthem’s telephone hotline (877-263-7995) says the company is aware of phone and email scams targeting former and current customers. The bogus emails include a “click here link” for credit monitoring. The emails attempt to gather personal information. No such notifications are from Anthem, the company says.
The company said phone calls that appear to be from Anthem are being made in attempt to gain personal information. Anthem says it is not calling customers in connection with the data breach.
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
Anthem says it will in the coming weeks individually notify by U.S. Postal Service current and former members whose information has been accessed.
Phishers and phone fraudsters are capitalizing on public concern over the cyber attack announced last week, reports Krebs on Security.
“A flood of phishing scams was unleashed just hours after Anthem announced publicly that a ‘very sophisticated cyberattack’ on its systems had compromised customers’ information, the cyber security website says.
Anthem’s data breach is likely the largest yet disclosed by a health-care company.
Late last week six Georgians became among the first in the nation to take Anthem Inc. to court over its enormous data breach.The six filed a class-action lawsuit against Anthem andBlue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia on Feb. 5 in federal court in Atlanta.
The new court action comes as a massive court case is getting underway in federal court in Atlanta over The Home Depot Inc.’s (NYSE: HD) data breach, which was revealed last September.
At least six other lawsuits have also been filed against Anthem in other courts around the country over the data breach, and many, many more are surely to follow. At least 44 lawsuits have been filed against Home Depot.
Date: February 9, 2015