The above is a note posted to a public forums (reddit, X, others) from hackers (BlackCat) due to lack of action/payment by Change HealthCare, owned by United HealthCare after a Ransomware attack on Change HealthCare’s systems. I’ve been in Healthcare industry (on payer side) for more than 35 years and this could potentially be one of the biggest security breaches of healthcare data in the digital age. This attack occurred sometime last Wednesday (2/21) and Change HealthCare has been “offline” since that time. For those that don’t know the name, Change HealthCare is one of the leading HealthCare Data Clearinghouses that submit claims data to Health Plans in the US. This impacts millions of us as providers can’t get claims through the healthcare system currently. It’s only been a week and most of us have seen no impact thus far but there are sure to be both near and far reaching impacts, both financially and on our privacy.
Pure speculation on my part, but I also noted that last week BitCoin was at approximately $54K and now sits north of $64K as that is traditionally how these ransomware ransoms are paid, e.g. see MGM and Ceasar’s as both were attacked recently by BlackCat. I’m guessing a few are speculating a huge payout in Bitcoin in the near future.
I’m not an IT guy, I’m an operations guy in healthcare, so I don’t know all the implications here, I’ve also not seen anything on the news (or this platform) about this, but expect that this may be coming to a newspaper or TV broadcast headline soon!
Here’s hoping for the best outcome for the integrity of our healthcare data and privacy.
Peace to all,
Mak
