(Bloomberg) -- Anthem Inc. faces what may be the first of manyconsumer lawsuits a day after disclosing that hackers obtained dataon tens of millions of current and former customers andemployees.

A California woman on Thursday accused the health insurer offailing to properly secure and protect its customers’ personalinformation, including names, birth dates and social securitynumbers, and she seeks to represent all other customers affected bythe massive data breach.

Anthem, the second-biggest U.S. health insurer by market value,said Wednesday that its computer system had been targeted in asophisticated attack by hackers. The Federal Bureau ofInvestigation is probing the breach, which people familiar with thematter say includes evidence that points to Chinese state-sponsoredhackers.

The Anthem attack is on a similar scale to hacks of customerdata from Target Corp. in 2013 and Home Depot Inc. last year interms of the number of people affected. The stolen information alsoincludes street and e-mail addresses and employee data, includingincome, Anthem said in an e-mail.

“It appears that Anthem’s security system did not involveencrypting Social Security numbers and birth dates –- two of themost valuable pieces of information that a thief can have,” SusanMorris said in her complaint filed in federal court in Santa Ana,California.

Unfair Competition

She seeks damages for violations of California’s unfaircompetition and data breach laws, among other claims.

Kristin Binns, a spokeswoman for Indianapolis-based Anthem,didn’t immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages afterregular business hours seeking comment on the lawsuit.

The company will notify customers who were affected and providecredit and identify-theft monitoring services for free, ChiefExecutive Officer Joseph Swedish said in a letter to members.

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said he sent a letterto Anthem Thursday seeking information about the company’s securitymeasures, how it discovered the breach and measures it’s taking toprotect against future attacks. Massachusetts Attorney GeneralMaura Healey also said she is investigating the matter.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has “reached out toAnthem to discuss how the company can best ensure that consumersacross New York state are protected,” a spokesman for Schneiderman,Nick Benson, said in a statement.

Data security has become a priority for some public officials inthe wake of earlier breaches at JPMorgan Chase & Co., SonyCorp.’s entertainment unit and Target.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Thursday urgedconsumers to take precautions after reports of the Anthem breach,such as by reviewing credit reports, placing fraud alerts onaccounts and watching out for so-called phishing schemes, throughwhich scammers use e-mails to trick consumers into givingadditional private information.

The case is Morris v. Anthem Inc., 15-cv-00196, U.S. DistrictCourt, Central District of California (Santa Ana).

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