- Change medical care suffered a great cyber attack in 2024
- The interruptions of that attack cost organizations millions
- The firm is now chasing the reimbursement of loans to cover the losses of these interruptions.
UnitedHealth Group is “aggressively” after small medical care organizations that asked for money borrowed after a great cyber attack on their change in medical care.
It is said that the attack affected almost 190 million Americans, and was the largest violation of US health data. And it was incredibly harmful, with only completely restored systems 9 months later, costing more than $ 2 billion to recover.
After the attack, the change offered interest -free loans to help medical practices with short -term cash flow needs. The firm now demands that these funds be paid “immediately”, and some organizations asked to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few days.
Lost income
Optum, the financial arm of Unitedhealth, has now confirmed that separate funds will retain until these loans are paid.
Doctors with their own private practices used these loans to cover interruption losses after the cyber incident, which cost hundreds of thousands, and according to reports, some used personal savings to keep practices afloat.
It is worth noting that UnitedHealth has a net worth of more than $ 470 billion (at the time of writing), and the Andrew Witty CEO obtained more than $ 23 million in compensation in 2023.
Optum has raised more than $ 4.5 billion of the debt of $ 9 billion, but since many practices lost both in time of inactivity thanks to the interruption, many will have difficulty paying the money owed in the time of Optum of only 5 days, with a doctor who describes it as a “Shaknown”.
UnitedHealth paid the ransomware attackers $ 22 million in cryptocurrency to recover their data, but the operation still closed in its entirety, and the change never recovered their data. Medical data are, of course, extremely sensitive, and put anyone exposed at risk of theft or identity fraud.
Through CNBC
