Dive Brief:
- Premera Blue Cross is facing five federal lawsuits after a data breach that affected 11 million people nationally.
- All five suits include allegations that Premera failed to protect their customers' personal data, which put them at risk for identity theft.
- Two of the suits also claim that Premera was warned last April by the US Office of Personnel Management that its IT systems were vulnerable to attack because the company had failed to take adequate security precautions.
Dive Insight:
John Yanchunis, an attorney for Morgan & Morgan, the firm that is representing the plaintiffs, says the five cases will likely be consolidated into one. Yanchunis told Healthcare Info Security that The Premera breach "is more egregious than the Home Depot or Target breaches because those [credit] cards can be canceled. Unlike those other breaches, the information involved in the Premera breach can be used to file fraudulent tax returns and fraudulently secure healthcare in someone else's name."
The suits are seeking unspecified damages.