The Anthem theft follows breaches of companies including Target Corp., Home Depot Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. that have touched the private data of hundreds of millions of Americans and increased pressure on the U.S. government to respond more forcefully. The nation's second-largest health insurer, formerly known as WellPoint, said hackers stole Social Security numbers, names, birthdates, email addresses, employment details, incomes and street addresses of people who are currently covered or had coverage in the past. “If you have a rich database of proclivities, health concerns and other personal information, it looks, from a Chinese intelligence perspective, as a way to augment human collection.” 
 
 That doesn’t mean that personal information wouldn’t make its way to criminals, he cautioned, pointing to the possibility of moonlighting by hackers who work by day for China. The estimated number of customers whose data was stolen could also turn out to be lower, one of the people said.
– The Anthem hack that exposed 80 million Americans' data bears "fingerprints" of a nation-state, and investigators are chasing evidence that that nation-state is China, reports Bloomberg. And the attackers aren't necessarily after a credit-card shopping spree: Rather, security experts and government officials say that it appears to be part of an overarching strategy aimed at developing a deep catalog of the data of certain Americans—and defense contractors and government workers appear to be prime targets. "This goes well beyond trying to access health-care records," says a VP of a cybersecurity firm. "If you have a rich database of proclivities, health concerns, and other personal information, it looks, from a Chinese intelligence perspective, as a way to augment human collection." The White House's own chief adviser on cybersecurity said he was among those whose data was compromised; Anthem also insures Boeing and other defense contractors, notes Bloomberg. Sources close to the investigation—which is being run by the FBI and FireEye—say that the techniques and malicious code have near-exclusive ties to China, reports the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the AP has a list of things hacking victims can do to protect themselves.