From THE FINE PRINT Editor | The Cyber War on the United States Healthcare Infrastructure
By Kimberly J. Soenen | February 29, 2024
Dear Readers,
The THE FINE PRINT is now read across 22 countries globally. Thank you for your readership, legislative engagement and support.
Firstly, apologies for the small typo in yesterday’s mailed headline about UnitedHealth Group. It was immediately corrected on the magazine platform.
THE FINE PRINT seeks to educate readers through the prism of Health Humanities, Best Practice, Quality of Care and the vital need for Do No Harm business models globally.
The cyber attacks that are currently being made on hospitals and healthcare systems over the last three months should not be take lightly or as business as usual. The scope and scale of these attacks are historic, and, most importantly, they impact the health of patients and the ability of our ethical medical professionals and administrators to do their jobs effectively.
Some leaders at the American Hospital Association are theorizing that U.S. foreign policy is the impetus for these attacks. Others in tech are positing that the hackers are now pursuing companies with billion- and trillion-dollar market caps because of the historic wealth. In either case, the lives of patients are impacted.
Why have hospitals, clinics and healthcare infrastruture become targets of war? I’ll leave that to the reader to research and answer.
As we all work to sculpt Health Philosophy Transformation and legislation in 2024, we might consider how vulnerable the unprecedented level of consolidation of wealth and power in healthcare has made patients and medical professionals.
In the weeks and months ahead, I will again feature profiles and Health Humanities features, and continue to share educational events that encourage the leveraging of human potential and wellness, but I will also continue tracking the impact of cyber attacks on patients throughout the year.
Thank you for reading.
To health,
Kimberly J. Soenen
Founder | “SOME PEOPLE”
SomePeopleEveryBody.com
The ransomware group linked to the cyberattack on Change Healthcare is also targeting hospitals, the FBI and HHS warned Feb. 27.
The BlackCat hacker gang has been focusing its attacks on the healthcare sector, with most of its 70 victims since December coming from that industry, according to the notice. The group's administrator encouraged affiliates to attack hospitals that month after the FBI infiltrated its operations.
BlackCat, also known as ALPHV Blackcat, claimed responsibility for the Feb. 21 hack of Optum subsidiary Change Healthcare, which has disrupted its payment and pharmacy processing systems at hospitals and pharmacies around the country. The group also creates "victim-specific emails," per the alert from the FBI, HHS and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The ransomware gang, which has ties to Russia, also reportedly hacked Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Health Network last year, leaking nude breast cancer patient photos online.
UPDATE February 29
Optum's Change Healthcare confirmed Feb. 29 that it was hacked by a ransomware gang after the group claimed to have stolen massive amounts of data.
"Change Healthcare can confirm we are experiencing a cybersecurity issue perpetrated by a cybercrime threat actor who has represented itself to us as ALPHV/Blackcat," an Optum spokesperson said. "We are actively working to understand the impact to members, patients and customers."
Many of Change Healthcare's applications, which span revenue cycle management to prescription processing, have been down since Feb. 21, disrupting operations at hospitals, physician practices and pharmacies across the country.
ALPHV/Blackcat, aka BlackCat, claimed responsibility for the hack, posting on its dark web leak site that it stole 6 terabytes worth of Change Healthcare data involving "thousands of healthcare providers, insurance providers, pharmacies, etc," Bleeping Computer reported Feb. 28. The allegedly stolen data includes medical records, patient Social Security numbers, and information on active military personnel (Change serves some military healthcare facilities).
But as Politico noted Feb. 28: "Ransomware groups, which demand extortion payments in exchange for restoring or not publishing stolen data, often exaggerate their exploits as a negotiating tactic."
ALPHV/Blackcat, which has been linked to Russia, has been targeting the U.S. healthcare industry since December after the FBI disrupted its operations.
Change Healthcare said it is working with cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Network and Mandiant, a Google subsidiary, as well as law enforcement to address the cyberattack.