Obamacare Site Hacked, No Personal Information Stolen

Obamacare Site Hacked

Looks like crime has officially gone digital. 

Officials have announced that a hacker broke in and installed malware on an Obamacare server back in July. Fortunately, no private data appears to have been stolen. Officials have since pledged to strengthen security for the federal health insurance enrollment site.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday, "Today, we briefed key Congressional staff about an intrusion on a test server that supports HealthCare.gov. Our review indicates that the server did not contain consumer personal information; data was not transmitted outside the agency and the website was not specifically targeted. We have taken measures to further strengthen security."

To date, millions of Americans have used the website to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act - a process that requires users to submit personal information including their social security numbers, income and names of family members. More Americans are expected to sign up when open enrollment begins again on November 15. Officials say the security breach will not affect enrollment.

The HHS official revealed, "The commonplace malware uploaded on the test server was designed to launch a 'denial of service' attack against other websites when activated and not designed to exfiltrate {personally identifiable information}."

The official added that HeathCare.gov was not specifically targeted in the hack, which could mean it was part of a broader effort to discover vulnerable spots across government-agency and private sector websites.

The breach was discovered when a department security team noticed an anomaly in the system security logs of one of the server's systems. HHS leadership and its Inspector General's office were "quickly notified and assisted in assessing the incident," the official said.