Cognizant Customers and Select Medicaid and Medicare Patients Exposed in Recent Breach

Cognizant is a massive IT services company with over 300,000 employees and more than $15 Billion in annual revenue. The company helps major corporations with IT services. TMG Health is a healthcare services provider that works with Medicare Advantage, Medicaid Part D, and Managed Medicaid programs for many government agencies throughout the country. Between these two major companies, a huge amount of data is stored. All that data is now vulnerable because of a breach that started in May. 

How Did the Attack Occur?

According to reports generated by Cognizant, a ransomware gang breached the company's files and gathered personal and business-related information in a breach that persisted from May 30 until June 3. During that period, a substantial amount of information was stolen, including some potentially harmful patient and company documents. 

What Information Was Viewed or Stolen?

According to the reports, Cognizant and TMG Health customers may have lost their full names, insurance claim numbers, Social Security numbers, medical service information, bank account numbers, birth dates, and phone numbers. Many personal and medical data points were lost to the breach, and anyone who receives a notice from Cognizant or TMG Health should be aware that any of the data mentioned above may have been exposed. 

How Did Cognizant Admit to the Breach?

Cognizant sent notices to everyone expected to have lost data in the latest round of breaches. The notices were sent out on September 1, 2023, and most victims should have received the letters by now. If you get one of the notices in the mail, you should take immediate action to guard your data and protect your credit from damage. 

What Will Become of the Stolen Information?

The data lost in this latest breach may be resold or leveraged to launch successful identity theft attacks. It's also possible the hackers will use some of the data points to attempt phishing attacks in an effort to gain access to additional accounts and services. This is why it's essential to avoid providing unverified individuals with your personal information. 

What Should Affected Parties Do in the Aftermath of the Breach?

You can take a few simple steps to protect yourself if you were informed that your information was involved in this Cognizant or TMG Health breach. Begin by running a full credit check, looking at any credit changes at each of the three major bureaus. Once you've tested your credit, you should consider putting a freeze on your credit to protect it from misuse. You could also invest in credit monitoring services to watch for odd changes in the future. Taking these simple actions can protect you against identity theft attacks. You can protect yourself further by monitoring your bank accounts closely. Watch your accounts and credit, and you should notice if anything unexpected occurs so you can protect yourself properly.