Health insurance data breach affects nearly half of France’s population, privacy regulator warns
By Alexander Martin, TheRecord.Media Data on more than 33 million people in France, approximately half the population, was compromised in a cyberattack at the end of January, according to the country’s privacy watchdog. The Commission Nationale Informatique et Libertés (CNIL) announced this week it had been informed by two health insurance companies, Viamedis and Almerys, about the incident. It warned that the data affects policyholders and their families and includes “marital status, date of birth and social security number, the name of the health insurer as well as the guarantees of the contract taken out.” Fortunately, unlike the incident affecting Australian health insurance business Medibank , medical histories and treatment data was not compromised. The CNIL said that the health insurance companies were directly responsible for informing the affected individuals — but people are urged to be cautious over potential phishing attempts intending to defraud them. The CNIL warned tha...