US Department of Health: UnitedHealth (UNHUS) technology sector suffered a hacking attack affecting 100 million people

Zhitongcaijing · 10/25 11:57

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the US Department of Health website shows that the hacker attack on UnitedHealth (UNHUS) in February of this year affected the personal information of 100 million people, making it the biggest medical data breach in the US. UnitedHealth previously said that hackers may have stolen data from one-third of Americans, one of the worst hacking attacks suffered by the US healthcare industry.

The company began notifying affected patients in June.

The number of people affected was published on a data breach list maintained by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights. UnitedHealth said in a statement that the investigation is still in its final stages and will continue to notify potentially affected individuals as soon as possible.

As early as 2015, health insurance company Anthem (now renamed Elevance Health) also had a data breach, affecting nearly 79 million people in the US

This year, UnitedHealth Technology was attacked by a hacker group called ALPHV, also known as “Black Cat.” UnitedHealth first reported the vulnerability on February 21. The flaw caused widespread disruption in claims processing, affecting patients and healthcare providers across the country.

In June of this year, as part of its request, UnitedHealth issued an announcement about a ransomware attack, stating that about one-third of the country's private data may have been leaked in the attack.

At the time, the company said that although it was unable to confirm the nature of the leaked data, it may include health insurance member IDs, patient diagnosis, treatment information, and social security numbers, and billing codes used by vendors.

Earlier this month, the company predicted the impact of business disruptions to reach $705 million this year, and the hacking caused large-scale payments and other business disruptions across the US. UnitedHealth issued billions of dollars in loans to vendors affected by the hacking attack and incur costs associated with informing customers of disclosure issues.