Over 33M impacted by Viamedis, Almerys breaches

More than 33 million individuals across France, or almost half of the country's population, were confirmed by the country's data protection authority CNIL to have had their data compromised following data breaches at French healthcare and insurance services providers Viamedis and Almerys last month, according to BleepingComputer. Such a development comes after Viamedis disclosed a cyberattack against its systems, which resulted in the exposure of beneficiaries' and health professionals' names, birthdates, Social Security numbers, civil status, insurer details, and third-party payment guarantees. Individuals whose data may have been affected were urged by CNIL to be vigilant of potential fraud. "Although contact data was not affected by the breach, it is possible that the data involved in the breach could be combined with other information from previous data leaks," said CNIL, which said that an investigation into the adherence of both Viamedis and Almerys to General Data Protection Regulation requirements is ongoing.