Colorado to receive more than $140,000 through data breach settlement
Colorado will receive $141,970 through a 44-state agreement with health insurer Anthem stemming from a nearly six-year-old data breach that affected 78.8 million Americans, including 1.5 million Coloradans.
“A data breach of this magnitude can have lasting impacts for Colorado residents,” said Attorney General Phil Weiser, who announced the agreement on Wednesday. “This settlement tells businesses that they will be held accountable for protecting the vital information of their customers.”
According to the contract, Anthem disclosed in February 2015 that a hacker infiltrated the company’s data warehouse and accessed the personal or protected health information of customers. Those data included customer names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, home addresses and income information.
Anthem will pay the states a total of $39.5 million. Colorado’s portion will go toward attorneys’ fees, antitrust enforcement and consumer education. The agreement stipulated that Anthem did not admit to liability or wrongdoing by entering the settlement.
Among other provisions, the company will modify its processes to provide more regular security reporting, undergo third-party risk assessments and develop tools to monitor network traffic.
“Anthem shall develop, implement, and maintain an intrusion detection and prevention solution to assist in detecting and preventing unauthorized access to the Anthem Network,” the agreement reads.