Change Healthcare’s Ransomware Fiasco: A Comedy of Errors with a $22 Million Punchline
Change Healthcare’s clearinghouse services are finally back online after February’s ransomware attack. With 94% of hospitals feeling the sting, the company has faced billions in losses and repaid $3.2 billion in loans. The incident exposed a lack of multi-factor authentication, leading to a “weapons-grade stuffup,” as experts call it.
Hot Take:
They say hindsight is 20/20, but in Change Healthcare’s case, their vision seems to have been more “blindfolded in a dark room.” How does a company that handles a third of the nation’s medical claims forget to enable multi-factor authentication? That’s like forgetting to lock the door to Fort Knox. Maybe they were too busy counting their 15 billion transactions to bother with the small stuff like cybersecurity.
Key Points:
- Change Healthcare’s clearinghouse services are back online nine months after a ransomware attack.
- The February ALPHV/Blackcat attack financially impacted 94% of US hospitals.
- UnitedHealth’s Optum provided over $6 billion in interest-free loans to affected providers.
- Change Healthcare has spent over $2 billion on attack remediation.
- 100 million people were affected by the breach, with significant data stolen.