Hackers have stolen personal information from tens of millions of people with Anthem health insurance. The nation's second-largest health insurer, formerly known as WellPoint, said hackers stole Social Security numbers, names, birthdates, email addresses, employment details, incomes and street addresses of people who are currently covered or had coverage in the past. 
 
 The Anthem logo hangs at the health insurer's corporate headquarters in Indianapolis, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. Hackers broke into the company's database storing information for about 80 million people... (Associated Press) 
 
 The Anthem hack adds to massive data breaches at JPMorgan, Sony Pictures, Target and Home Depot in the past 18 months. Whether shopping, banking or going to the hospital, Americans are mostly at the mercy of companies to keep their sensitive details safe. But here's what you can do if your information was stolen. 
 
 FIRST THINGS FIRST 
 
 — Notify the credit agencies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) and request a 90-day credit alert. (Each reporting agency is supposed to notify the others, but you may want to contact all three yourself.) The alert tells businesses to contact you before opening any new accounts in your name. You can renew the alert every 90 days, or you're entitled to keep it in effect for seven years if you find that your identity is stolen and file a report with police. 
 
 — You might consider asking the reporting agencies to place a full freeze on your credit. This blocks any business from checking your credit to open a new account, so it's a stronger measure than a credit alert. BUT you should weigh that against the hassle of notifying credit agencies to lift the freeze — which can take a few days — every time you apply for a loan, open a new account or even sign up for utility service. 
 
 BE A DETECTIVE 
 
 — When your credit card bill comes, check closely for any irregularities. And don't overlook small charges. Crooks are known to charge smaller amounts, usually under $10, to see if you notice. If you don't, they may charge larger amounts later. 
 
 — Get a free credit report once a year from at least one of the major reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion), and review it for unauthorized accounts. Ignore services that charge a fee for credit reports. You can order them without charge at www.annualcreditreport.com . If you order from each agency once a year, you could effectively check your history every four months. 
 
 DO PAID SERVICES WORK? 
 
 — Some experts say there's not much to be gained from a paid credit monitoring service. But it can't hurt to sign up for any monitoring Anthem or any other hacked business offers for free. NOTE: These services will tell you if a new account is opened in your name, but they won't prevent it, and many don't check for things like bogus cellphone accounts, fraudulent applications for government benefits or claims for medical benefits. Some do offer limited insurance or help from a staffer trained to work with credit issuers and reporting agencies. 
 
 SOMEONE DID STEAL MY IDENTITY, WHAT DO I DO? 
 
 — Contact the credit issuer to dispute fraudulent charges and have the bogus account closed. 
 
 — Request your credit report and ask the reporting agencies to remove bogus accounts or any incorrect information from your record. See tip #1 on setting up a credit alert and/or freeze. 
 
 — Submit a report through the FTC website: www.consumer.ftc.gov. Click the "privacy & identity" tab, which will walk you through creating an affidavit you can show to creditors. 
 
 — Keep copies of all reports and correspondence. Use certified mail to get delivery receipts, and keep notes on every phone call. 
 
 AVOID ADDITIONAL HACKS 
 
 — After a hack, scammers may try to use the stolen data to trick you into giving up more personal information. They can use that info to steal money in your accounts or open new credit card. 
 
 — Don't click on any links from emails. Bad software could be downloaded to your computer that can steal account passwords. 
 
 — You might get letters in the mail saying you won a tablet or vacation and give you a phone number to call. Don't do it. It's likely a ploy to gather more information from you. 
 
 — Hang up the phone if you get a call asking for account numbers or other information. Scammers may also send texts, so don't click on any links from numbers you don't know. ||||| SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
 
 Investigators of Anthem Inc.’s data breach are pursuing evidence that points to Chinese state-sponsored hackers who are stealing personal information from health-care companies for purposes other than pure profit, according to three people familiar with the probe. 
 
 The breach, which exposed Social Security numbers and other sensitive details of 80 million customers, is one of the biggest thefts of medical-related customer data in U.S. history. 
 
 The attack appears to follow a pattern of thefts of medical data by foreigners seeking a pathway into the personal lives and computers of a select group -- defense contractors, government workers and others, according to a U.S. government official familiar with a more than year-long investigation into the evidence of a broader campaign. 
 
 The Anthem theft follows breaches of companies including Target Corp., Home Depot Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. that have touched the private data of hundreds of millions of Americans and increased pressure on the U.S. government to respond more forcefully. Though President Barack Obama promised action against North Korea after the destruction of property at Sony Pictures Entertainment, corporations and the government have struggled to come up with appropriate responses to attacks that fall into a gray area between espionage and crime. 
 
 ‘Phishing’ Attacks 
 
 Technical details of the attack include “fingerprints” of a nation-state, according to two people familiar with the investigation, who said China is the early suspect. 
 
 The Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation, according to Anthem, which has hired FireEye Inc., a Milpitas, California-based security company, to assist. 
 
 China has said in the past that it doesn’t conduct espionage through hacking. The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Hackers could use stolen information -- which Anthem said in its case included birthdates and e-mail addresses -- to conduct “phishing” attacks on customers who unwittingly provide access to their companies’ networks. Government officials have been investigating whether foreign interests are using personal, financial or medical information as leverage to gain intelligence from people who want their information to stay private, according to the U.S. official. 
 
 Adviser Hacked 
 
 Michael Daniel, President Obama’s chief adviser on cybersecurity, is an an Anthem customer who would be resetting his password, he said in a Bloomberg Web seminar early Thursday. 
 
 Among those insured by Anthem have been employees of Northrop Grumman Corporation, according to the insurer’s website, while the company has processed claims for workers at The Boeing Company in Missouri. Boeing has about 15,000 workers in Missouri, where the company’s defense unit is based. Those and other defense contractors could be of interest to foreign intelligence organizations. 
 
 Anthem spokeswoman Kristin Binns declined to comment. 
 
 John Dern, a spokesman for Boeing, and Mark Root, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman, didn’t immediately comment. Jenny Shearer, a spokeswoman for the FBI, declined to comment. 
 
 Building Profiles 
 
 In the past year, Chinese-sponsored hackers have taken prescription drug and health records and other information that could be used to create profiles of possible spy targets, according to Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at Crowdstrike, an Irvine, Califorinia-based cybersecurity firm. He declined to name any of the companies affected. 
 
 “This goes well beyond trying to access health-care records,” Meyers said. “If you have a rich database of proclivities, health concerns and other personal information, it looks, from a Chinese intelligence perspective, as a way to augment human collection.” 
 
 That doesn’t mean that personal information wouldn’t make its way to criminals, he cautioned, pointing to the possibility of moonlighting by hackers who work by day for China. 
 
 A different major U.S. health insurer was breached recently by Chinese hackers, according to a person involved in that investigation, who asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. In that case, investigators concluded that the goal of the hack was to obtain information on the employees of a defense contractor that makes advanced avionics and other weaponry, said the person, who declined to identify the insurer. 
 
 The hackers first hijacked a translation website that the insurer’s customer representatives used when dealing with foreign clients, using it to implant malware on the company’s computers, the person said. 
 
 Hard Targets 
 
 “A lot of these healthcare companies have a lot of very trusted relationships at the network level and the corporate level to some very hard targets on the federal side and the commercial side,” said Orion Hindawi, co-founder and chief technology officer for Tanium Inc., a Berkeley, California-based security firm that is used by banks, healthcare and other companies. 
 
 “The healthcare environment is in an unfortunate position: It didn’t expect to be a high, heavy target five years ago, so they didn’t prepare,” Hindawi said. “They didn’t expect to have advanced threats from nation-state actors targeting them.” 
 
 Deep Panda 
 
 At Anthem, officials detected the theft of the trove of customer information as it was being sent from its computers on Jan. 29, according to one of the people. 
 
 Meyers said the breach fits the pattern of a hacking unit that Crowdstrike calls Deep Panda, which over the last several months has targeted both defense contractors and the health care industry. China appears to be putting together huge databases of individuals who might be intelligence targets, he said. Another example was the theft last year from a government agency of data on tens of thousands of employees who had applied for top-secret clearances, he said. 
 
 The Anthem investigation is young, several people involved cautioned, saying the final determination of the hackers’ identity could ultimately change. The estimated number of customers whose data was stolen could also turn out to be lower, one of the people said. 
 
 U.S. intelligence officials have been increasingly concerned that repeated attacks on medical and pharmaceutical firms are at least in part efforts to obtain personal information for espionage purposes. 
 
 Two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified efforts to pursue the attackers, said a number of the attacks came from the People’s Liberation Army’s Unit 61398. Five members of that Shanghai-based hacking unit were indicted by federal prosecutors last year. 
 
 Dual-Purpose Hack 
 
 A different and more sophisticated group attacked Anthem, based on initial indications, two people familiar with the investigation said. 
 
 Like many other Chinese hacking campaigns, the attacks appear to serve multiple purposes -- one commercial and the other related to national security -- said one of the U.S. officials. The attacks, this official and a former intelligence officer said, can test a firm’s ability to protect intellectual property and financial information, while simultaneously stealing prescription records, medical treatment histories and other personal information that could be used to blackmail individuals to reveal national security and trade secrets. 
 
 The attacks apply new technology to some of the oldest espionage trade craft in the world, the former official added.
– The Anthem hack that exposed 80 million Americans' data bears "fingerprints" of a nation-state, and investigators are chasing evidence that that nation-state is China, reports Bloomberg. And the attackers aren't necessarily after a credit-card shopping spree: Rather, security experts and government officials say that it appears to be part of an overarching strategy aimed at developing a deep catalog of the data of certain Americans—and defense contractors and government workers appear to be prime targets. "This goes well beyond trying to access health-care records," says a VP of a cybersecurity firm. "If you have a rich database of proclivities, health concerns, and other personal information, it looks, from a Chinese intelligence perspective, as a way to augment human collection." The White House's own chief adviser on cybersecurity said he was among those whose data was compromised; Anthem also insures Boeing and other defense contractors, notes Bloomberg. Sources close to the investigation—which is being run by the FBI and FireEye—say that the techniques and malicious code have near-exclusive ties to China, reports the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the AP has a list of things hacking victims can do to protect themselves.