Shelton-based Health Net of the Northeast Inc. surprised state officials and regulators Wednesday when it admitted private information on 450,000 Connecticut residents has been missing for about a half-year. According to the company and state regulators, an unencrypted portable disk drive containing personal information on past Health Net clients and providers disasppeared from the Shelton office in May, but not reported until now.
The company said the breach was not reported because it took a long time to conduct a detailed forensic investigation to determine what information is missing. According to state officials, the disk drive contained health information, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and other personal information on members and providers dating to 2002.
Although the company said a special program is needed to view the documents, Tarek Sobh, a computer engineering expert and dean of the University of Bridgeport's School of Engineering, said that's not much protection.For more, see connpost.com.
