All posts tagged: UnitedHealth

The biggest data breaches in 2024: 1 billion stolen records and rising

Published by skeptic

We’re over halfway through 2024, and already this year we have seen some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent history. And just when you think that some of these hacks can’t get any worse, they do. From huge stores of customers’ personal information getting scraped, stolen and posted online, to reams of medical data covering most people in the United States getting stolen, the worst data breaches of 2024 to date have already surpassed at least 1 billion stolen records and rising. These breaches not only affect the individuals whose data was irretrievably exposed, but also embolden the criminals who profit from their malicious cyberattacks. Travel with us to the not-so-distant past to look at how some of the biggest security incidents of 2024 went down, their impact and. in some cases, how they could have been stopped.  AT&T’s data breaches affect “nearly all” of its customers, and many more non-customers For AT&T, 2024 has been a very bad year for data security. The telecoms giant confirmed not one, but two separate …

Haun Ventures is riding the bitcoin high

Haun Ventures is riding the bitcoin high

Published by skeptic

The firm invested $5M in Agora, a front-end solution for Dao governance, this week Blockchain startups were red-hot when Katie Haun left Andreessen Horowitz in 2021 to launch her own crypto-focused venture firm. But shortly after Haun announced that Huan Ventures’ two funds totalled $1.5 billion, cryptocurrency prices cratered, and FTX collapsed.  Despite having a massive arsenal of dry powder, Haun Ventures didn’t rush to scoop up stakes in crypto and web3 on the cheap, and many observers wondered when the firm would pick up its deployment pace. While Haun Ventures says it wasn’t exactly sitting on its hands (and capital) through crypto’s downturn, the firm was perhaps more cautious than it initially intended.  But now that bitcoin prices have rebounded to their previous highs, Haun Ventures’ investment activity is increasing dramatically. Including some of its token positions, the firm has made 48 investments across its early-stage $500 million and $1 billion later-stage acceleration funds, Haun Ventures told TechCrunch.  The firm’s latest investment is Agora, an app that streamlines voting and other decision-making for decentralized …

UnitedHealth says Change hackers stole health data on ‘substantial proportion of people in America’

UnitedHealth says Change hackers stole health data on ‘substantial proportion of people in America’

Published by skeptic

Health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group has confirmed that a ransomware attack on its health tech subsidiary Change Healthcare earlier this year resulted in a huge theft of Americans’ private healthcare data. UnitedHealth said in a statement on Monday that a ransomware gang took files containing personal data and protected health information that it says may “cover a substantial proportion of people in America.” The health insurance giant did not say how many Americans are affected but said the data review was “likely to take several months” before the company would begin notifying individuals that their information was stolen in the cyberattack. Change Healthcare processes insurance and billing for hundreds of thousands of hospitals, pharmacies and medical practices across the U.S. healthcare sector; it has access to massive amounts of health information on about half of all Americans. UnitedHealth said it had not yet seen evidence that doctors’ charts or full medical histories were exfiltrated from its systems. The admission that hackers stole Americans’ health data comes a week after a new hacking group began publishing …

US offers million bounty for info on ‘Blackcat’ hackers who hit UnitedHealth

US offers $10 million bounty for info on ‘Blackcat’ hackers who hit UnitedHealth

Published by skeptic

WASHINGTON : The U.S. State Department on Wednesday offered up to $10 million for information on the “Blackcat” ransomware gang who hit the UnitedHealth Group’s tech unit and snarled insurance payments across America. “The ALPHV Blackcat ransomware-as-a-service group compromised computer networks of critical infrastructure sectors in the United States and worldwide,” the department said in a statement announcing the reward offer. UnitedHealth said last week it was beginning to clear a medical claims backlog of more than $14 billion as it brought its services back online following the cyberattack, which caused wide-ranging disruption starting in late February. UnitedHealth’s tech unit, Change Healthcare, plays a critical role in processing payments from insurance companies to practitioners, and the outage caused by the cyberattack has in some cases left patients and doctors out of pocket. The toll on the community health centers that serve more than 30 million poor and uninsured patients has been especially harsh. Hackers said earlier this month that UnitedHealth paid a $22 million ransom in a bid to recover its systems, but whether Blackcat …

UnitedHealth CEO Meets White House Officials After ‘Biggest Cyber Attack On US Health Care System’

UnitedHealth CEO Meets White House Officials After ‘Biggest Cyber Attack On US Health Care System’

Published by skeptic

Following a devastating cyberattack on the nation’s largest health insurers that sparked chaos across the entire healthcare payments system, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group and other industry leaders met with White House officials on Tuesday. Simultaneously, the Department of Health and Human Services has opened up an investigation into the incident.  The cyberattack against UnitedHealth and its subsidiary Change Healthcare was first detected on Feb. 21. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, this forced UnitedHealth to sever some of Change Healthcare’s digital payment networks from its clients. Another filing said the company is working to restore payment systems this week.  Bloomberg said that “halting the normal flow of billions of dollars in payments between doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and insurers” triggered a “paralysis” across the industry as some healthcare clinics were thrown into “financial peril” in recent weeks.  “I can’t believe we’re in this mess,” said Kathy Oubre, chief executive officer of Pontchartrain Cancer Center in southeast Louisiana, adding, “It’s going to take us months to dig out.” The impact of a cyber attack on Change Healthcare, …

Ransomware targeting UnitedHealth payment system hits pharmacies

Ransomware targeting UnitedHealth payment system hits pharmacies

Published by skeptic

A prescription is filled on Jan. 6, 2023, in Morganton, N.C. A ransomware attack is disrupting pharmacies and hospitals nationwide this week. Chris Carlson/AP hide caption toggle caption Chris Carlson/AP A prescription is filled on Jan. 6, 2023, in Morganton, N.C. A ransomware attack is disrupting pharmacies and hospitals nationwide this week. Chris Carlson/AP A ransomware attack is disrupting pharmacies and hospitals nationwide, leaving patients with problems filling prescriptions or seeking medical treatment. On Thursday, UnitedHealth Group accused a notorious ransomware gang known as Black Cat, or AlphV, of hacking health care payment systems across the country. Last week, the top health insurance company disclosed that its subsidiary, Optum, was impacted by a “cybersecurity issue,” leading to its digital health care payment platform, known as Change Healthcare, being knocked offline. As a result, hospitals, pharmacies and other health care providers have either been unable to access the popular payment platform, or have purposefully shut off connections to its network to prevent the hackers from gaining further access. UnitedHealth says that as of Monday it estimated …

UnitedHealth blames ‘nation-state’ in hack disrupting pharmacy orders

UnitedHealth blames ‘nation-state’ in hack disrupting pharmacy orders

Published by skeptic

A cyberattack against a division of UnitedHealth Group Inc. has caused a nationwide outage of a computer network that’s used to transmit data between healthcare providers and insurance companies, rendering some pharmacies unable to process prescriptions, according to the company and reports from affected organizations. UnitedHealth found a “suspected nation-state associated cyber security threat actor” had access to subsidiary Change Healthcare’s systems Wednesday, prompting the company to disconnect them from other parties, the company said in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. UnitedHealth, the country’s largest health insurer, said in a statement Thursday that the cyberattack and related “network interruption” affected only Change Healthcare and that all its other systems are operational. Change Healthcare is a key intermediary in the $1.5-trillion U.S. health insurance market. UnitedHealth is working with law enforcement and security experts but can’t say when the service will be restored, according to the filing. The company hasn’t determined that the attack is likely to affect its financial results, it said. “Change Healthcare is experiencing a cybersecurity issue, and our …

UnitedHealth says Change Healthcare hacked by nation state, as pharmacy outages drag on

UnitedHealth says Change Healthcare hacked by nation state, as pharmacy outages drag on

Published by skeptic

U.S. health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group said Thursday in a filing with government regulators that its subsidiary Change Healthcare was compromised likely by government-backed hackers. In a filing Thursday, UHG blamed the ongoing cybersecurity incident affecting Change Healthcare on suspected nation state hackers but said it had no timeframe for when its systems would be back online. UHG did not attribute the cyberattack to a specific nation or government, or cite what evidence it had to support its claim. A company spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment at the time of writing. Change Healthcare provides patient billing across the U.S. healthcare system. The company processes billions of healthcare transactions annually and claims it handles around one-in-three U.S. patient records, amounting to around a hundred million Americans. The cyberattack began early Wednesday, according to the company’s incident tracker. Change Healthcare has not yet disclosed the specific nature of its cyberattack. Pharmacies across the U.S. are reporting that they are unable to fulfill prescriptions through patients’ insurance due to the ongoing outage at Change …