Six items, including discussion of the Anthem data breach and options for a contract with emergency dispatch software provider Spillman Technologies Inc., were on the agenda for the ?meeting.
In February, Anthem, a nationwide health insurance company that provides coverage to many of the county government’s employees, had a breach in security in which up to 80 million separate costumer records were hacked.
As of now, it is unclear whether any county employee had personal information stolen from the hacker said Eric Evans, director of the Monroe County IT department.
The information stolen by hackers includes the dates of birth, social security numbers, email and home addresses.
“We’ve had discussions with Anthem,” Evans said. “At this point, they have not given us any confirmation that any of the data, any of our data, has been breached in this. The most prevalent concern that this creates is that email addresses were allegedly included in the data that was harvested in this. We’re concerned that there will be a prevalent uptick in the amount of fishing attempts.”
Evans put the Anthem breach in perspective for the council. He said all similar data breaches from 1999 to 2009 totaled just under 40 million records, whereas the Anthem breach totaled about 80 million records.
Nancy Panzarella of the county’s HR department said Anthem had been very responsive to the county’s questions, but she still does not know how the breach has ?affected the county.
“I still have no idea if any of our members have been impacted or how many, and I asked Anthem as recently as this morning and still have no answer,” Panzarella said.
Also up for discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting was the contract with Spillman about the emergency ?dispatch software.
As of now, the county has three options. First, to go on year-by-year contract with Spillmam. Second, to enter into a five-year pre-pay contract in which the county would save $591,000. Or third, to enter into a 10-year pre-pay agreement in which the ?county would save $703,000.
But several members on the council, including council members Geoff McKim and Marty Hawk, expressed concerns about entering into such a long-term agreement with Spillman. The council also approved the request by Beth Hamlin to fill a position in the prosecutor’s office.
Lastly, the council did a review of the county’s budget and discussed a bill in the Indiana Senate that would allow for Monroe County to pose an income tax to expand public transportation into the extended parts of the county — not just inside the city of Bloomington.
