US insurance giant Aflac says customers’ personal data stolen during cyberattack

AFLAC, one of the largest insurance companies in the United States, said the pirates have stolen an unknown quantity of personal information from its customers to its network during a cyber attack earlier this month.

The insurance giant confirmed on Friday in a Legally required deposit With the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company identified pirates in its system on June 12 and contained the incident. AFLAC, which provides additional insurance to people whose expenses are not covered by their main suppliers, said that it has not yet been known how many customers are affected by data violation, but that personal data include customer complaints, such as social security and health information.

The violation also included data from beneficiaries, employees and agents of Aflac, said the company.

AFLAC said its systems were not affected by ransomware, but attributed the violation to an unrecognized cybercrime group known to target the American insurance sector. According to its Friday press releaseAFLAC said the pirates used social engineering tactics to enter its network.

An Aflac spokesman, who did not provide his name, refused to answer Techcrunch questions when he was reached by e-mail on Monday.

AFLAC, which has around 50 million customers per The company’s websiteis the last American insurance company to experience a cyber attack in recent weeks, in the midst of warnings according to which hackers have been targeting the wider insurance sector.

John Hultquist, the chief analyst of the intelligence unit on the threats of Google, said last week that the unit was “aware of several intrusions” in the United States which supports the characteristics of the activity linked to Spisted Spider, a loose collective of pirates and tactics on which they count on social engineering Tactics and sometimes threats of violence to target the company help offices and call centers in order to access their networks.

Pirates are also would have been behind recent intrusions to Erié insurance And Philadelphia insurance companieswho revealed cyber attacks this month, with current disturbances.

Pirates linked to dispersed spiders attacks are known to be financially motivated and have been previously linked to cyber attacks and intrusions to intrusions technology giants,, Casinos and hotelsAnd recent data violations In the retail sector in the United Kingdom and the United States.