Elizabeth M. Whitehorn Director at Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services | Official website
Elizabeth M. Whitehorn Director at Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services | Official website
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) and the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) have reported an incident involving the State of Illinois Application for Benefits Eligibility (ABE) system's Manage My Case (MMC) portal. This notification follows requirements under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the Illinois Personal Information Protection Act.
The ABE system is utilized for determining eligibility for state-funded medical benefits, including Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF. The MMC portal allows users to access their case history and benefit details. On March 13, 2023, it was discovered that suspicious user accounts had been created within this system. These accounts were able to link to existing customer MMC accounts using stolen personal information such as dates of birth, Individual IDs or Social Security Numbers, alongside correctly answered identity proofing questions.
According to the Departments, "customer personal information had been stolen elsewhere - through no fault of the Departments - and this stolen personal information was then used to access customer MMC accounts." The potentially exposed data includes clients' names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, recipient identification numbers, individual IDs, Case IDs, Social Security Numbers, benefits applied for and received, income information, application documents submitted via ABE portal as well as information about individuals included in these applications.
In response to this security breach, new software has been deployed by the Departments to prevent further creation of suspicious user accounts. Additionally, they have disconnected these suspicious accounts from legitimate customer profiles.
On May 12th 2023 notifications were sent out by the Departments informing potentially affected individuals along with members from both Illinois General Assembly & Office Attorney General regarding said incident.
A dedicated phone line is available until August 14th providing assistance concerning any inquiries related specifically towards this matter at hand: 1-877-657-0006. Furthermore those who might be impacted can reach out directly towards consumer reporting agencies like Equifax (www.equifax.com/personal/), Experian (www.experian.com), TransUnion (www.transunion.com) or Federal Trade Commission's Identity Theft Recovery Steps | IdentityTheft.gov page located on their website www.ftc.gov
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