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Massive cyber attack on US Health system this week causing disruptions

https://healthitsecurity.com/news/change-healthcare-disconnects-system-amid-cyberattack

 healthitsecurity.com
Change Healthcare Disconnects Systems Amid Cyberattack
Jill McKeon
3–4 minutes

February 22, 2024 - Change Healthcare is experiencing a network interruption due to a cyberattack, the company stated in a notice on its website. Change Healthcare is part of health tech company Optum, which is owned by healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group as of 2022. Through its platform, Change processes patient payments for healthcare organizations across the country.

“Once we became aware of the outside threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect our systems to prevent further impact,” Change noted in its lastest update. “The disruption is expected to last at least through the day.”

Change posted its initial notice on February 21, when it began experiencing disruptions to some applications. A few hours later, the company reported “enterprise-wide connectivity issues.”

By Wednesday night Eastern Time, Change began calling the incident a “cybersecurity issue” and assured patients that was working with experts to address the matter.

Pigeon, Michigan-based Scheurer Family Pharmacy reported impacts from the outage that resulted in it being unable to process prescriptions temporarily, the Huron Daily Tribune reported.

“Due to a nationwide outage from the largest prescription processor in North America, we are currently unable to process prescriptions at any of our four locations of Scheurer Family Pharmacy,” Scheurer Health told patients in a Facebook post. “We are being told that this is temporary but have not been given a time for restored services.”

The pharmacy clarified to concerned patients that it was still able to accept prescriptions, but could not process them through the patients’ insurance. A later update stated that its systems were “back up and running.”

 “Now with reports surfacing that Change Healthcare has experienced an outage due to a likely ransomware attack, and pharmacies across the country are experiencing delays in processing prescriptions, we’re reminded of the challenges healthcare providers face daily to ensure business continuity and patient care,” said Micky Bresman, CEO of security company Semperis.

“While it is too early to tell if the suspected ransomware attack on Change will affect the lives of patients in need of medications, they do reportedly process 15 billion transactions annually. This attack comes after numerous recent ransomware attacks on hospitals such as Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago and medical supply operator Henry Schein.”

This is a developing story. It will be updated as more information becomes available.