Massachusetts Well being Insurer Information Breach Exposes Social Safety Numbers

Conduent Providers, a third-party “back-office assist” service supplier, has notified Blue Cross Blue Defend sufferers of a serious knowledge leak containing their extremely delicate data — together with Social Safety numbers.

“We’re writing to tell you a couple of latest incident skilled by Conduent that will have concerned a few of your private data, which got here into our possession because of the companies we offer to Blue Cross Blue Defend of Texas,” the corporate advised sufferers in an Oct. 24 letter.

Whereas the corporate stated it’s “unaware” of any tried or precise misuse of affected person knowledge, Conduent nonetheless supplied clients with a listing of cautionary measures they’ll take to guard themselves “ought to [they] really feel it essential.”

In January, Conduent confronted a “cyber incident” that impacted a few of its community — prompting an investigation.

“Our investigation decided an unauthorized third social gathering had entry to our surroundings from October 21, 2024 to January 13, 2025, and obtained some recordsdata related to Blue Cross Blue Defend,” the corporate stated.

“We’re offering you with this discover upon the latest conclusion of this time-sensitive knowledge evaluation, as your private data was contained within the affected recordsdata,” the corporate stated

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Affected data consists of sufferers’ date of beginning, addresses and Social Safety numbers.

The corporate is providing affected people 24 months of credit score monitoring and id restoration companies freed from cost.

What are you able to do?

Conduent features a checklist of steps BCBS sufferers can take to watch their private data, together with:

• 24 months of id monitoring by way of Kroll: You may go to enroll.kroll.com/redeem and enter your activation code, discovered in your notification letter, in addition to the connected ID. You could enroll by March 2026 to make use of the service freed from cost.
• Free credit score report: Beneath U.S. legislation, you might be entitled to at least one free credit score report yearly from every of the three main credit score reporting bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You may request your report at annualcreditreport.com by calling 877-322-8228.
• Place a fraud alert: A fraud alert tells collectors to contact you earlier than opening a brand new account or altering current accounts. To put an alert, you possibly can name any one of many three main credit score reporting companies. The primary alert is energetic for 90 days. You may renew it once more after the primary 90 days are up.

With id monitoring companies by way of Kroll, sufferers also can obtain credit score monitoring alerts, entry to fraud session and entry to id restoration specialists if id fraud points come up.