Couple of laptops filched could affect 800,000 insurance members

Healthcare and Public Health // New Jersey, United States

Someone broke into the offices of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and stole the machines, which were not encrypted.

The laptops were locked to an employee workstation inside Horizon’s Newark headquarters but the cable-locks were not enough to prevent the theft.

The stolen machines might have contained member names, addresses, dates of birth, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey identification numbers, Social Security numbers, and clinical information.

“Due to the way the stolen laptops were configured, we are not certain that all of the member information contained on the laptops is accessible,” the company said in a press release.

Horizon says that it began notifying individuals potentially affected on December 6.

ThreatWatch is a regularly updated catalog of data breaches successfully striking every sector of the globe, as reported by journalists, researchers and the victims themselves.