Blue Shield of California members’ data stolen — ‘a gold mine for thieves’

Sensitive data from Blue Shield of California vision policy holders — including Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses — may be among confidential patient information accessed by criminal hackers, the Oakland-based health insurance giant announced this week.

The breach, which may also have included diagnosis and treatment information, resulted from a cyberattack on a widely used software tool for sending and receiving data, Blue Shield said. The insurer is among thousands of organizations affected by the hack.