Security breach threatens privacy of ObamaCare enrollees

According to a recent report, the Vermont health insurance exchange was breached late last year by a Romanian hacker. The criminal gained access to the exchange’s development server at least 15 times over the course of one month. This is not the first time the Vermont exchange system has been hacked, raising serious concerns about...

According to a recent report, the Vermont health insurance exchange was breached late last year by a Romanian hacker. The criminal gained access to the exchange’s development server at least 15 times over the course of one month.

This is not the first time the Vermont exchange system has been hacked, raising serious concerns about ObamaCare enrollees’ health information.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the work of a professional hacker who was able to effectively cover his or her tracks. While there is no evidence of specific data being stolen, one leading expert believes that, because of the overall lack of security on the system, there is no way to know what damage the hacker might have actually done over the course of the 15 breaches.

According to Michael Gregg, a cyber-security expert, the extent of the breach may never be known. Gregg commented:

“Best practices were not carried out in several respects. All those point to the possibility of further or additional breaches, because they have just not shown that they have done the due diligence, and without those controls in place, it’s hard to say. The attacker could have captured passwords on additional systems and used those to create different accounts that Vermont Health Connect doesn’t know about yet.”

Previous federal assurances that the ObamaCare health insurance exchange’s data hub – where information on applicants and enrollees from across the country can be obtained by government agencies and insurers – is “secure” belie the facts. That is because the system is only as strong as its weakest link.

While there will always be risks of data breaches in the modern world, both the federal government and, in this case, the state of Vermont, failed to take the minimum steps necessary to protect and secure sensitive personal information; repeatedly putting public relations and victory-lap press conferences ahead of citizens’ privacy.

Compromised health and financial privacy can have devastating effects. A breach like Vermont’s threatens to impact patients’ reputations and can also lead to fraud, imposing enormous costs on those whose identities have been stolen.

Americans are already paying an enormous price for ObamaCare’s many broken promises – higher premiums, losing their health plans and doctors, and narrow networks of providers. Are we going to be forced to pay an even higher price through the loss of our most personal and guarded personal information? Vermont enrollees may have already.