Connecticut receives $52K from $10M multistate data breach settlement

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has announced the state will receive $52,642 from a $10 million multistate settlement involving a data breach that impacted customers of Premera Blue Cross.

The settlement”™s size is based on the number of state residents impacted by the data breach, with involved more than 10.4 million consumers nationwide; approximately 15,000 Connecticut residents were affected by the breach. Tong was among 30 state attorneys general involved in the settlement. Premera Blue Cross is the largest health insurance company in the Pacific Northwest. The data breach occurred in 2014.

“Premera was repeatedly warned by cybersecurity experts about deficiencies in its security program, yet the company failed to fix its practices,” Tong said in a statement. “This settlement will require Premera to implement the specific data security controls needed to safeguard consumers’ personal health information. No consumer should ever have to worry about their sensitive personal information being compromised by those who were entrusted to protect it.”

The settlement also requires that Premera provide data security reports, completed by a third-party security expert approved by the multistate coalition, to the Washington State Attorney General”™s Office and hire a chief information security officer.