Forbes October 28, 2024
On October 24th, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights data breach portal updated the total number of people impacted by the UnitedHealth data breach to 100 million, marking the first time the company has officially quantified the breach’s scope. This confirmation cements the breach as the largest healthcare data exposure in U.S. history, underscoring the significant risks that cybersecurity incidents pose to sensitive patient information.
What Happened in the Change Healthcare Breach?
As reported by TechCrunch, the breach began in February 2024 when the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group targeted UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare platform, a widely used payment processing system within the healthcare industry. The attackers deployed ransomware to disrupt operations and exfiltrated vast amounts of...