The UnitedHealth Group’s corporate logo is prominently displayed on one of their office buildings in Santa Ana, California.
Recently, UnitedHealth Group made a shocking revelation about a cyberattack that compromised health and personal information of a large number of Americans in February. The breach occurred within its Change Healthcare unit, which processes about half of all medical claims in the U.S.
Despite common security measures like multifactor authentication (MFA), which were not activated for this specific application, the hackers managed to access sensitive data. This breach exposed protected health information and personally identifiable data of a significant portion of the American population.
The cyberattack, attributed to a group known as AlphV or BlackCat, led to disruptions in healthcare payments and forced providers to find alternative billing methods. Another hacker group, Ransomhub, posted screenshots of the stolen data on the dark web.
UnitedHealth confirmed that a ransom was paid to protect patient data and is working closely with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to investigate the incident. While the full extent of the breach is still being analyzed, the company assured that doctors’ charts and complete medical histories were not compromised.
Although the exact number of affected individuals was not disclosed, UnitedHealth is actively monitoring online hacker forums for any leaked data. Despite the challenges, pharmacy services are returning to normal levels, with most pre-incident pharmacies able to process claims.
2024-04-25 05:51:02
Article from www.ibtimes.com