Cyberattacks against Viamedis and Almeris: Third-party payments halted, patients forced to foot costs

Hacking third-party payment platforms risks discouraging some people from buying new glasses.

They are always reimbursed, but customers must increase the cost while waiting for the computer system to be secured.

A hurdle that ophthalmologists clearly suffer from at the moment.

This is one result of the computer hacking of Viamedis and Almeris, two companies that manage third-party payments on behalf of the supplementary health insurance of several million social security holders in France. The cyber attack led to the theft of some people’s personal data (marital status, date of birth) and health data (social security number, name of supplemental health insurance, contractual guarantees). “33 million people”According to estimates from the CNIL, the digital privacy watchdog.

After the shutdown, third-party payment platforms Viademis and Almeris are no longer accessible. “The practice is to close everything, then slowly reopen services that we’re sure are no risk“, Corinne Henin, a computer security expert, explains in the TF1 report at the top of this article. Meanwhile, many patients are forced to pay up front. This is the case of Charlotte, who was found by our team, who must go. Every month Like, her optician to get new lenses.

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This time, unlike usual, she will have to pay, as her optician can no longer advance the cost with her mutual insurance company. “These are the lenses I wear every day to see clearly. At the moment, I can hardly do without it“, explains on TF1’s microphone.

This massive data leak is also not without consequences for opticians. “We can no longer provide quotes for our customers or request support or invoicing for files that are in progress. We can’t even pay for the parts store we delivered to. People left with their glasses, but we couldn’t pay the mutual part“, explains optician Charlene Delaby in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine). Amounts of hundreds of euros.

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Another result, a certain number of patients choose to postpone their appointments due to lack of support.”We also lost customers. There are people who don’t want to get their glasses, because we can’t request support. They don’t want to increase costs“, explains the optician. It should still take several days to get the two platforms back up and running.