Example Of Security Breach In Anthem Health Insurance Research Paper

(Institution Name)
The second largest health insurance company in the United States, Anthem Health Insurance faced a severe cyber attack by hackers at the beginning of February this year. The company currently has roughly thirty-seven and a half million customers (Jaspen, 2015). As required by the insurance company, the entire personal information of the customers is collected and maintained in the company’s database. It is not wrong to say that it is the most valuable thing that such a company has. The hackers found their way through all security barriers sneaking into the database. As soon as the breach was recognized about, there was tension on the high inside and outside the company about misuse of the stolen information (Murphy, 2015).
The suspected attackers are somehow associated with being beneficiaries of using fake credit lines. There is also a possibility that whoever took a peek into the company’s database intends making false medical records of patients (Hargrove, 2015). The company also feels that false tax filing might be a motive for the undertaking of such an attack (O’Razio, 2015).
It has not yet been brought to the table as to why were these hackers able to hack into such a high security and protected database; however some sources confirm that systems were down for repair during the time when the attack occurred. The security could have been made better using secure firewalls and especially through paying a heed to the warning calls made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (The Guardian, 2015). It has also come to knowledge that FBI issued several warnings to Anthem Health Insurance about the possibility of such an attack, the time that Anthem had is no less either, it has been ten months since FBI issued the last warning to Anthem and still they were unable to prevent this from happening (Mathews, 2015).

References

Jaspen, B. (8th Feb 2015). Anthem Cyber Attack Clouds Insurer's Obamacare Bounty. Retrieved 13th Feb 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2015/02/08/anthem-cyber-attack- clouds-insurers-Obamacare-bounty/
Murphy, T. (9th Feb 2015). Anthem Hack: Health Care Records Make Fertile Field For Cyber Crime. Retrieved 13th Feb 2015, from http://www.courant.com/business/connecticut-insurance/hc-ap-anthem-health- care-hacking--20150209-story.html
Hargrove, T. (10th Feb 2015). FBI warned health care providers 10 months before Anthem cyber attack. Retrieved 13th Feb 2015, from http://www.thedenverchannel.com/decodedc/fbi-warned-health-care-providers- 10-months-before-anthem-cyber-attack
D'Orazio, D. (7th Feb 2015). Phishing attacks prey on victims of massive Anthem health insurance hack. Retrieved 13th Feb 2015, from http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/7/7999349/anthem-health-insurance- phishing-attacks-after-massive-hack