Attackers who compromised personal data of about 11 million customers of healthcare provider Premera were likely after intelligence about groups or individuals, not cashing in on the information, even though it has enormous market value, experts say.
Hackers who went undetected for eight months gained wholesale access to medical records and other personal data of the 1.8 million Premera Blue Cross health plan members in Washington State and Alaska as well as anyone who did business with the company.
Some of the world's largest businesses say their Cobol application infrastructure, running on state-of-the-art big iron, still delivers a powerful competitive advantage. The challenge going forward will be staffing it.