Medical insurance big UnitedHealth Group has confirmed {that a} ransomware assault on its well being tech subsidiary Change Healthcare earlier this yr resulted in an enormous theft of People’ non-public healthcare information.
UnitedHealth stated in a press release on Monday {that a} ransomware gang took information containing private information and guarded well being data that it says might “cowl a considerable proportion of individuals in America.”
The medical insurance big didn’t say what number of People are affected however stated the information overview was “prone to take a number of months” earlier than the corporate would start notifying people that their data was stolen within the cyberattack.
Change Healthcare processes insurance coverage and billing for tons of of hundreds of hospitals, pharmacies and medical practices throughout the U.S. healthcare sector; it has entry to huge quantities of well being data on about half of all People.
UnitedHealth stated it had not but seen proof that medical doctors’ charts or full medical histories had been exfiltrated from its methods.
The admission that hackers stole People’ well being information comes per week after a brand new hacking group started publishing parts of the stolen information in an effort to extort a second ransom demand from the corporate.
The gang, which calls itself RansomHub, printed a number of information on its darkish internet leak website containing private details about sufferers throughout an array of paperwork, a few of which included inside information associated to Change Healthcare. RansomHub stated it could promote the stolen information until Change Healthcare paid a ransom.
In a press release supplied to TechCrunch, UnitedHealth spokesperson Tyler Mason confirmed the corporate paid the cybercriminals. “A ransom was paid as a part of the corporate’s dedication to do all it may to guard affected person information from disclosure.” The corporate wouldn’t affirm the quantity it paid.
RansomHub is the second gang to demand a ransom from Change Healthcare. The well being tech big reportedly paid $22 million to a Russia-based prison gang known as ALPHV in March, which then disappeared, stiffing the affiliate that carried out the information theft out of their portion of the ransom.
RansomHub claimed in its put up alongside the printed stolen information that “we now have the information and never ALPHV.”
In its assertion Monday, UnitedHealth acknowledged the publication of a number of the information however stopped wanting claiming possession of the paperwork. “This isn’t an official breach notification,” UnitedHealth stated.
The Wall Avenue Journal reported Monday that the prison hacking affiliate of ALPHV broke into Change Healthcare’s community utilizing stolen credentials for a system that permits distant entry to its community. The hackers had been in Change Healthcare’s community for greater than per week earlier than deploying ransomware, permitting the hackers to steal important quantities of knowledge from the corporate’s methods.
The cyberattack at Change Healthcare started on February 21 and resulted in ongoing widespread outages at pharmacies and hospitals throughout america. For weeks, physicians, pharmacies and hospitals couldn’t confirm affected person advantages for meting out medicines, organizing inpatient care, or processing prior authorizations needed for surgical procedures.
A lot of the U.S. healthcare system floor to a halt, with healthcare suppliers going through monetary stress as backlogs develop and outages linger.
UnitedHealth reported final week that the ransomware assault has value it greater than $870 million in losses. The corporate reported it made $99.8 billion in income through the first three months of the yr, faring higher than what Wall Avenue analysts had anticipated.
UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty, who acquired near $21 million in whole compensation the complete yr of 2022, is about to testify to Home lawmakers on Might 1.
Up to date with remark from UnitedHealth.
