WellPoint is the nation’s largest health insurer. The company has had another security incident:

“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 health insurer said Tuesday.”

link: WellPoint customer information exposed

The obvious concern is identity theft, with the Social Security numbers compromised. However, there is a deeper concern. These are health insurance data. This compromised information may be used for medical identity theft. That can be deadly.

An example medical identity theft is one person using a stolen identity for medical services. The medical records for this person may be in a data base. If the rightful person, who has had his/her identity information used, requires emergency attention, the physician may see an adulterated medical record and set a course of treatment (or non treatment) that is inappropriate.

Identity theft in terms of medical use is not only costly in terms of finances. It can be deadly.

Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster: http://flyinghamster.com/

Tags: wellpoint, data breach, privacy, security, medical identity theft, social security numbers, health insurer