Dive Brief:
- The federal government's Office of Personnel Management has announced plans to introduce new data breach reporting rules for health insurers that cover federal employees, according to a Nextgov report.
- OPM Acting Director Beth Cobert made the announcement last week during the annual Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) conference.
- The move follows the high profile incident disclosed in June 2015 in which hackers breached OPM and Anthem, a major insurer for the FEHBP program.
Dive Insight:
The federal government is aiming to standardize the reporting procedure among its contracted health insurers through the upcoming new rules, for the sake of ensuring they are "complete, sufficient, and uniform," Cobert said during the announcement. “And that going forward, carrier practices are aligned with best practices in IT," she added.
Cobert argued given the breaches at OPM and other insurers and providers, the government and its partners must coordinate efforts to keep their data secure.
She added OPM cybersecurity adviser Clifton Triplett, who was brought on board as part of the response to last year's OPM hack that impacted almost 22 million federal employees and contractors, is already working with the companies.
The rules echo draft guidelines issues by the White House last August, Nextgov notes, that aim to standardize cybersecurity incident reporting among contractors that store federal data on third-party systems.