Change Healthcare's new ransomware nightmare goes from unhealthy to worse

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Change Healthcare is going through a brand new cybersecurity nightmare after a ransomware group started promoting what it claims are People' delicate medical and monetary data stolen from the well being care large.

“Many of the People who’re suspecting us in all probability have your personal information,” the RansomHub gang mentioned in an announcement seen by WIRED.

Based on the screenshots, the stolen information reportedly contains medical and dental data, cost claims, insurance coverage particulars, and private data like Social Safety numbers and e mail addresses. RansomHub claimed to have well being care information on active-duty US army personnel.

The widespread theft and sale of delicate well being care information represents a dramatic new type of the February cyberattack on Change Healthcare that crippled the corporate's claims-payment operations and plunged the U.S. well being care system into disaster as Hospitals struggled to remain open with out common funding. ,

Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, beforehand acknowledged {that a} ransomware gang generally known as BlackCat, or Alfavi, had breached its techniques and advised WIRED final week that it was investigating the corporate's dealing with of the stolen information. is investigating Ransomhub's claims. Change Healthcare didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark concerning the group's alleged sale of its information.

The wide range of affected person information that Ransomhub claims to promote is a testomony to Change Healthcare's position as an vital middleman between insurers and well being care suppliers, facilitating funds between the 2 events and Collects delicate details about sufferers and their medical procedures within the course of. ,

Pattern data posted by RansomHub include an inventory of open claims dealt with by the corporate's Equiclaims subsidiary that features affected person and supplier names; Hospital data of a 74-year-old lady in Tampa, Florida; and the portion of the database data referring to the well being care of U.S. army service members.

RansomHub mentioned it could permit particular person insurance coverage firms that labored with Change Healthcare and had their information compromised to pay a ransom to cease the sale of their data. It specified that he was promoting information associated to MetLife, CVS Caremark, Davis Imaginative and prescient, Well being Internet, and Academics Well being Belief.

Change Healthcare's “processing of delicate information for all of those firms is unbelievable,” RansomHub mentioned in its announcement.

Many of the firms whose information RansomHub claims to have of their possession didn’t instantly reply to WIRED's request for remark.

Mike DeAngelis, govt director of company communications for CVS Well being, says the corporate is “conscious of unproven claims by menace actors that confidential information, together with the private data of sufferers and members belonging to a number of organizations, was compromised because of the Change Healthcare cybersecurity incident.” Was accessed as half.”

“We’re intently monitoring Change Healthcare's response to this concern and can present an replace with extra data as applicable,” DeAngelis says, noting that Change Healthcare has not but confirmed whether or not the affected person information ” Was affected by this incident.”

Brett Callow, a menace analyst at safety agency Emsisoft who intently tracks ransomware gangs, says the brand new sale of stolen information was in all probability “much less about truly promoting the information” and extra about Change Healthcare and people companion firms. In whose data it failed. Defend—“Below extra strain to pay.”

It seems that Change Healthcare has paid AlphV a $22 million ransom to cease leaking the stolen terabytes of knowledge.

Two months into the disaster triggered by a ransomware assault, Change Healthcare faces mounting losses. The corporate not too long ago reported spending $872 million responding to the incident by means of March 31.

On the identical time, Change is below rising strain from lawmakers and regulators to supply a proof about its cybersecurity lapses and the steps it’s taking to stop one other hack.

A subcommittee of the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee held a listening to Tuesday on the well being sector's cyber state of affairs, with key lawmakers saying they had been dissatisfied that UnitedHealth Group declined to make an govt out there to testify. And the Division of Well being and Human Companies is investigating whether or not Change Healthcare's failure to stop hackers from accessing and stealing its information violated federal data-security guidelines.

Up to date 4/16/2024, 5:38 PM ET: Added extra particulars concerning the companies whose information Ransomhub claims to carry.

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