AFLAC intrusion targeted by cybercrime gangs

Health insurance giant Aflac revealeD This is the victim of Friday’s cybersecurity breach, but it has been dealt with within a few hours.

In the United States, Aflac claims to be the “number one supplier of supplementary health insurance products” and has approximately 50 million customers. The company said it was too early to tell how many users were affected by the violation.

Earlier this week, Google’s threat assessment team warned that “multiple invasions in the United States” had Scattered spidersa ransomware group targeting Mark & ​​Spencer and other retailers, most notably hacker Las Vegas Casino in September 2023.

Chief analyst John Hultquist told registerCybercrime groups are usually focused on one industry at a time, and “the insurance industry should be highly alert, especially for social engineering programs that help desks and call centers, so cybercrime groups are often focused on one industry, which is a corporate technology news media.” Social engineering is when hackers become technical support workers to obtain secure information.

Aflac said social engineering caused their hacking, although the violation did not involve ransomware and did not name the scattered spider in the statement, but instead referred to “a complex cybercrime gang.”

this maximum The vulnerability in the history of U.S. health care occurred in February 2024 to change health care that affects more than one million users. according to Go to the Ministry of Health and Health Services. In any such incident, the stolen data includes not only medical records, but also credit card numbers, social insurance numbers, driver’s licenses, etc.

Aflac assured customers that the problem is resolved by the network fixed response protocol and that customer service will not be affected.