More than 100,000 Americans have been affected by a newly-discovered data breach at the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The CMS has released a statement stating that an investigation revealed fraudulent Medicare.gov account were opened utilizing personal information from their system. This affected 103,000 individuals.
The call center at 1-800-MEDICARE began to receive inquiries on May 2 from beneficiaries who had received confirmation letters that they were the ones responsible for creating Medicare.gov account. CMS launched an immediate investigation. It found that fraudulent actors created accounts using beneficiary data between 2023-2025, such as Medicare Beneficial Identifiers, coverage start dates, names, birthdates, and zip codes .”
Fraudsters could have also stolen personal data such as provider details, addresse postale, date of service, diagnosis code, services provided and premium information.
CMS will be sending out letters informing those who have had their information stolen that they are going to receive a brand new Medicare card, with a unique Medicare number within the next few weeks.
According to the federal agency, it also disabled all new Medicare.gov account creation from IP addresses outside of Canada and deactivated any fraudulently-created accounts.
Victims are advised to obtain free annual credit reports through www.annualcreditreport.com and to file reports with local law enforcement and the Federal Trade Commission if any identity theft incidents occur.
CMS has not received any reports about identity fraud, or the misuse of information as a result of this cyberattack.
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The post Medicare and Medicaid data breach hits 103,000 Americans as fraudulent accounts are opened using victims’ personally identifiable information may be updated to reflect new developments.
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