In December, international law enforcement targeted a gang, leading to the seizure of various websites and digital decryption keys, as reported by Reuters. In response to this crackdown, the Blackcat hackers threatened to extort critical infrastructure providers and hospitals.
A recent attack on Change Healthcare, resulting in its parent company UnitedHealth Group disconnecting its systems to prevent further impact, has caused disruptions in prescription insurance claims, according to the American Pharmacists Association. This outage, which has persisted through Tuesday, is attributed to a notorious hacker group, as per a new report.
The outage at Change Healthcare, which handles payment management for UnitedHealth Group, was caused by a ransomware attack by hackers associated with Blackcat, also known as ALPHV, according to Reuters, citing anonymous sources. Blackcat has been involved in several recent high-profile data breaches, including attacks on Reddit, Caesars Entertainment, and MGM Resorts.
As a result of the breach, pharmacies nationwide are facing significant delays in processing customer prescriptions. Change Healthcare stated they are actively working to restore the affected environment and ensure system security.
UnitedHealth Group mentioned that most pharmacies have implemented workarounds to mitigate the impact of the outage on claim processing. The company expressed confidence that other data systems in its healthcare portfolio were unaffected by the breach.
While last week's breach was suspected to be "nation-state-associated," according to an SEC filing by UnitedHealth, it's uncertain if the group responsible was sponsored by foreign actors. Cybersecurity firms Mandiant and Palo Alto Networks, appointed by UnitedHealth, will lead the investigation into the breach.