Connecticut’s Attorney General has joined with nine other states to ask health insurer Anthem to speed up its plan to protect consumers in the wake of what may be the nation’s biggest-ever data breach.
George Jepsen sent a letter to Anthem's CEO on behalf of attorneys general from Rhode Island, Maine, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and several other states, calling on Anthem to step up its response to its customers.
Eighty million people, including more than a million in Connecticut, may have been affected by the cyber hack, and Anthem initially said it will provide two years of credit monitoring for customers.
Jepsen said his office has been flooded with complaints from consumers who are frustrated with the company’s lack of communication about how people can access that service. The letter said the delay in notifying those who are impacted is unreasonable, and is causing unnecessary added worry.
Jepsen added that each day that goes by puts them at greater risk. The Attorney General said he wants an answer from the company by 3:00 pm on Wednesday, giving details of the protections that Anthem will provide to its customers.
Meanwhile, Connecticut looks likely to enact tighter encryption standards on sensitive data, in the wake of the Anthem data breach.
The Senate Democrats have announced that they’ll introduce a bill this session to tighten up on how companies store data and who can access it.
Senator Bob Duff said the scale of the hack means that legislative action is vital."We wanted to get out there and reassure the residents of the state that the Connecticut legislature will be tackling this issue as a priority for us," he told WNPR.
Duff said many of the details of the bill still have to be worked out, but it will focus on two main areas. "We're going to be talking about encryption, and ensuring that data is private and that it cannot be easily hacked," he said. "And two is the way in which people can access that data, so that an entity such as a foreign government can't get all of the data."
Duff said several other states have tackled the issue in the past, and he’s confident that Connecticut can develop effective standards.
