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A Texas-based company that provides health insurance and benefit plans disclosed a data breach affecting almost 2.5 million people, some of whom had their Social Security number stolen.<\/p>\n
WebTPA said in a data breach notice<\/a> published earlier this month that the company detected \u201cevidence of suspicious activity\u201d on December 28, 2023, which prompted the company to launch an investigation \u201cto mitigate the threat and further secure our network.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The investigation, the company said, \u201cconcluded that the unauthorized actor may have obtained personal information between April 18 and April 23, 2023,\u201d approximately eight months before the company detected the breach.<\/p>\n \u201cThe information that was impacted may have included name, contact information, date of birth, date of death, Social Security number, and insurance information. Not every data element was present for every individual,\u201d the company wrote in the notice posted on its website.<\/p>\n WebTPA reported the breach to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this month on May 8, according to the federal department\u2019s website<\/a>. In this report, WebTPA disclosed that the breach affected 2,429,175 individuals and that the breach occurred on\u00a0 a \u201cnetwork server.\u201d<\/p>\n TechCrunch asked the company to clarify exactly how many people had their Social Security numbers stolen, among other questions. WebTPA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n WebTPA also said that it is not aware of \u201cany misuse of benefit plan member information,\u201d and that financial account information, credit card numbers as well as \u201ctreatment or diagnostic information\u201d were not impacted in the breach.<\/p>\n Contact Us<\/strong><\/p>\n Do you know more about this WebTPA breach? Or similar data breaches? From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or\u00a0email.<\/a>\u00a0You also can contact TechCrunch via\u00a0SecureDrop<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n