February 7, 2025
Changed healthcare breach affected 190 million Americans

Changed healthcare breach affected 190 million Americans

The largest medical-related data breach in US history was even larger than first estimated.

The Ransomware attack on UnitedHealth’s Change healthcare The cases last year had affected about 190 million people, nearly double past estimatesTechCrunch reported Friday (January 24).

“Change Healthcare has determined that the estimated total number of individuals affected by the Change Healthcare Cyberattack is approximately 190 million,” wrote Tyler Mason, a spokesperson for UnitedHealth, in an email to the publication.

The vast majority These people have already received an individual or replacement notification. The final number will be confirmed and submitted to the civil rights office at a later date. ”

The statement added that the company was “not consciously of any misuse of individuals’ information as a result of this incident and did not see any electronic medical record databases appear in the data during analysis. ”

Last year’s attack caused Months of disruptions Everywhere in the US healthcare systemas Change is one of the largest processors of health claims in the countrywhile also handling Large portions of health and medical data and patient records.

Hackers have made massive inroads into health and insurance-related threats infopublishing part of it online. Change Healthcare paid at least two ransoms to keep others info by being made public. According to the TechCrunch report, UnitedHealth had previously said about 100 million People were affected by the breach.

As Pymnts wrote last month, the attack was one of many high-quality cybersecurity incidents last yearA list That Also includes a breach of background check company national public data that led to the stolen information of 2.9 billion people. There was also the Snowflake Data Breach which included AT&T, Santander Bank, Advance Auto Parts, Ticketmaster parent company Livenation and more than 160 of the world’s largest companies.

‘But only those attacks scratched the surface of emerging enterprise vulnerabilities,” that report said. “As we move into 2025, the lessons from these breaches are more relevant than ever for companies navigating the digital frontier.”

In other cybersecurity news, Pymnts wrote last week about the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) usage in security systems.

Research by Pymnts Intelligence shows that the number of Chief Operating Officers (COOs) reporting that their companies have adopted AI-powered automated cybersecurity management systems tripled last year, 55% achieved In August 2024, up from about 17% last May.

Each of the COOs surveyed for the study is a company that generates more than $1 billion in revenue per year.

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