Anthem goes into damage control mode after breach

Health insurance giant Anthem is reeling in the wake of a major data hack that exposed sensitive customer information dating back to 2004.

The breach could affect as many as 80 million current and former customers, according to reports. Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish and the company are now in the initial steps of crisis communications. They’re trying to figure out how it happened, exactly how significant the breach was and what they’ll need to do moving forward.

Swedish and the company communicated the hack very soon after it happened. From the Los Angeles Times:

But there’s also been growing criticism of the company for not taking the basic step of encrypting people’s Social Security numbers and other personal details that were stolen from its vast database …