Health insurer Centene has misplaced hard drives containing 1m customers’ records

US-based health insurance firm Centene, which has nearly 5 million customers across the country, explained in a statement that it has lost six hard drives containing 950,000 customers’ personal information.

The drives contain the names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers and health data of customers who received laboratory services between 2009 and 2015.

Centene says that none of the drives include any financial or payment information.

While the company runs its internal search to track down the missing items, it said that it will notify affected customers and offer free credit and healthcare monitoring.

That’s another strike for US-based health insurers who have failed to protect private data. Last year, Anthem and Premera Blue reported that their systems were breached and a total of 91 million customers’ records were accessed by hackers.

➤ Centene Announces Internal Search of Information Technology Assets [PRNewsWire via Gizmodo]