HealthCare.gov Portal Suffers Data Breach Exposing 75,000 Customers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Sensitive information belonging to roughly 75,000 individuals was exposed after a government healthcare sign-up system got hacked, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said on Friday. The agency said that 'anomalous system activity' was detected last week in the Direct Enrollment system, which Americans use to enroll in healthcare plans via the insurance exchange established under the Affordable Care Act -- also known as Obamacare. A breach was declared on Wednesday. It's unclear why the agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, chose to not announce the incident sooner. Officials said the hacked portal is used by insurance agents and brokers to help Americans sign up for coverage and that no other systems were involved. The affected system has been disabled. CMS said it hoped to restore it before the end of next week. 'I want to make clear to the public that HealthCare.gov and the Marketplace Call Center are still available, and open enrollment will not be negatively impacted,' CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement. 'We are working to identify the individuals potentially impacted as quickly as possible so that we can notify them and provide resources such as credit protection.'

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