UnitedHealth data breach caused by lack of multifactor authentification


Hackers breached the computer system of a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary and released ransomware after stealing someone’s password, CEO Andrew Witty testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

The cybercriminals entered through a portal that didn’t have multifactor authentification (MFA) enabled. During an hourslong congressional hearing, Witty told lawmakers that the company has not yet determined how many patients and health care professionals were impacted by the cyberattack on Change Healthcare in February.

Read more…
Source: MSN News


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • A bug in an Irish government website exposed COVID-19 vaccination records

    March 14, 2024

    Two years ago, the Irish government fixed a vulnerability in its national COVID-19 vaccination portal that exposed the vaccination records of around a million residents. But details of the vulnerability weren’t revealed until this week after attempts to coordinate public disclosure with the government agency stalled and ended. Security researcher Aaron Costello said he discovered the ...

  • US health department opens probe into UnitedHealth hack

    March 13, 2024

    The U.S. government on Wednesday said it has opened an investigation into the cyberattack at UnitedHealth Group’s Change Healthcare to find out whether there was a breach of protected health data and if the company followed U.S. health privacy law. It is the first announcement of a probe by the Department Of Health and Human Services ...

  • Capita shares sink as outsourcing giant swings to £107m loss, takes £25m hit from cyber attack

    March 6, 2024

    Capita has incurred £25.3m in costs tied to a cyber attack last March as the outsourcing giant swung to an annual loss and ramped up its cost-cutting programme. Shares fell 16 per cent on Wednesday morning. The group, which runs key local government, military and NHS services, posted a pretax loss of £106.6m for 2023, compared ...

  • Hacker forum post claims UnitedHealth paid $22 mln ransom in bid to recover data

    March 5, 2024

    A post on a hacker forum popular with cybercriminals has claimed UnitedHealth Group opens new tab paid $22 million in a bid to recover access to data and systems encrypted by the “Blackcat” ransomware gang, according to two researchers. Neither UnitedHealth nor the hackers involved have commented on the alleged ransom payment, but a cryptocurrency tracing ...

  • US prescription market hamstrung for 9 days (so far) by ransomware attack

    March 1, 2024

    Nine days after a Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate took down the biggest US health care payment processor, pharmacies, health care providers, and patients were still scrambling to fill prescriptions for medicines, many of which are lifesaving. On Thursday, UnitedHealth Group accused a notorious ransomware gang known both as AlphV and Black Cat of hacking its subsidiary, Optum. ...

  • #StopRansomware: Phobos Ransomware

    February 29, 2024

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) are releasing this joint CSA, to disseminate known TTPs and IOCs associated with the Phobos ransomware variants observed as recently as February 2024, according to open source reporting. Phobos is structured as a ransomware-as-a-service ...