BlueCross BlueShield hack may have exposed data for 10 million customers

Another week, another major institution falls victim to hackers. This time, it's New York-based heathcare provider Excellus BlueCross BlueShield: the company says that more than 10 million personal records of its customers were exposed to hackers in an attack it discovered this past August. The company discovered the attack early in the month, but after doing more investigation it turned out that it actually took place way back in December of 2013. The investigation showed that the hackers could have accessed personal information including "name, date of birth, Social Security number, mailing address, telephone number, member identification number, financial account information and [insurance] claims information."

While all of this information could have been exposed to hackers, the company isn't sure exactly what may have been revealed. The investigation thus far hasn't shown any evidence of what data was stolen and whether it was used in any nefarious way, but Excellus is still offering its customers the now-commonplace two years of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

Unfortunately, hacks against healthcare providers are hardly a rarity at this point. An attack on Premera, another arm of BlueCross, was revealed in March of this year, putting the data of 11 million customers at risk. And just a month earlier, Anthem was hacked -- the database accessed in that breach contained the info of a whopping 80 million customers, though only a portion of those were believed to have been accessed.

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