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Attorney general representative to visit campus to discuss tax fraud, Anthem breach

Editor's note: A previous version of this story contained an error that said the Indiana Attorney General will come to campus. A representative from the Office of the Attorney General will be on campus, not the Attorney General himself.

Ball State announced a representative from the Indiana Attorney General's Office will come to the university to answer questions about the income tax fraud and Anthem Medical breach during last Thursday's University Senate meeting.

Ball State administrators Bernard Hannon, vice president for business affairs; Phillip Repp, vice president for information technology; and Loren Malm, associate vice president for information technology, provided an update to the Anthem Medical breach and the income tax fraud to more than 100 people.

The representative will be at Ball State at 4 p.m. on April 8 during the finance and budgetary committee.

The university has asked Anthem to come and visit as well, but has not yet set a date.

The update session covered basic facts on the breach and identity thefts. The administrators relayed the plan for moving forward into the future with both of these issues. It is not known if the identity thefts and income tax frauds were caused by the Anthem breach.

Anthem breach:

  • Anthem announced it was the victim of a personal information breach on Feb. 5. About 78.8 million people were affected, which includes about 4.5 million Hoosiers.
  • The investigation has concluded that the breach occurred due to a compromised login and password, not a hack of Anthem’s cyber security system. Anthem told Ball State the login information was probably compromised because of a phishing scam, said Bernard Hannon.
  • Anthem has the personal information for about 8,000 Ball State employees and their dependents.
  • Anthem does not know what information was compromised and said to assume that it all had been phished.
  • The suspect of the investigation is not in the U.S.
  • Ball State has requested that Anthem come to the university to visit and answer questions. A date has not been set up. Since Feb. 5, the university has sent out six emails regarding the breach.
  • Anthem is providing free identity and credit monitoring through AllClear ID for two years. However, faculty senators were concerned with what happens if they experience an identity theft after the two-year period because the breach leaked their information and those of their dependents. Hannon said the university shares their concerns and has spoken with Anthem about possibly extending the two-year coverage.
  • The university has spoken on the case with the IRS, FBI, Secret Service, FTC and Indiana's attorney general’s office.
  • A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Anthem. Ball State has not joined, but isn't prevented from doing so, Hannon said.

Income tax fraud:

  • "140 employees have self-reported to Ball State that they have been victims of income tax fraud and identity theft,” Hannon said. The actual number could be higher because faculty can choose whether to tell the university.
  • In context of the 4,000 employees at Ball State, the 140 employees make up 3.5 percent of employees, Hannon said. There were about 11,000 W-2 tax forms issued this year from the university; one percent of those were part of the income tax fraud.
  • Hannon said other universities that were affected by this round of income tax fraud include Western Kentucky University, Arkansas State, Michigan Tech, Northern Iowa, Oakland University, Miami Dade College and Indiana University.

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