Viamedis Data Breach Puts Millions at Fraud Risk

Millions of insurance policyholders and healthcare professionals are at risk of fraud after French healthcare services provider, Viamedis, suffered a data breach incident.

According to the firm’s ongoing investigation, the incident was not ransomware, rather an employee targeted phishing attack, which allowed the unidentified hacker to breach its system.

Although the company did not disclose the number of impacted individuals, it is believed that around 20 million insured individuals avail its services. The compromised data includes sensitive information like an individuals’ name, date of birth, marital status, social security number, name of insurance provider, and guarantees available to third-party payers.

The exposed data did not include banking information, postal address, phone numbers, email addresses. As for health data, ‘’only less than 50 beneficiary invoices have been breached and only concerns information on medical transport (taxi, ambulance),’’ the announcement revealed.

In addition to preparing a separate notification detailing the type of data exposed, the company has also established a separate information system for healthcare professionals.

In terms of impact on service delivery, Viamedis said that due to the temporary discontinuation of its platform, among health professionals, only opticians and audioprosthetists would be affected. However, ‘’beneficiaries will be able to continue to use their carte vitale and their third-party payment card’’ as usual, it continued.

Viamedis has filed a complaint with the public prosecutor and informed that affected healthcare companies. It has also notified the relevant regulatory authorities, including CNIL and ANSSI.

The incident notification was posted on LinkedIn, as its website continues to remain offline. Viamedis is a third-party payment provider for 84 complementary health insurance companies, and some of the organizations using its services include Carte Blanche Partenaires, Itelis, Kalixia, and Santéclair, among others.

In a separate incident, Almerys, another French third-party health payment processor faced a similar data breach attack.