By ZACHARY AMOS
The well being care sector is not any stranger to cyberattacks. Nonetheless, giant incidents just like the February 2024 ransomware assault on Change Healthcare are sufficient to shake up the {industry}. Within the wake of such a large breach, medical organizations of all sorts and sizes ought to take the chance to evaluate their safety postures.
What Occurred within the Change Healthcare Cyberattack
On February 21, Change Healthcare — the largest medical clearinghouse within the U.S. — suffered a ransomware assault, forcing it to take over 100 techniques offline. Lots of its digital companies remained down for weeks, with full restoration taking till early April.
Every week after the assault, the notorious ransomware-as-a-service gang BlackCat claimed accountability. BlackCat was additionally liable for 2021’s Colonial Pipeline shutdown and several other assaults on well being care organizations all through 2023. This newest act towards Change Healthcare, nonetheless, stands as considered one of its most disruptive but.
As a result of Change and its mother or father firm — UnitedHealth Group (UHG) — are such central {industry} gamers, the hack had industry-wide ripple results. A staggering 94% of U.S. hospitals suffered monetary penalties from the incident and 74% skilled a direct influence on affected person care. Change’s companies have an effect on one in each three affected person data, so the large outage created a snowball impact of disruptions, delays and losses.
Most of Change’s pharmacy and digital fee companies got here again on-line by March 15. As of early April, practically every little thing is working once more, however the monetary fallout continues for a lot of enterprises reliant on UHG, because of substantial backlogs.
What It Means for the Broader Well being Care Sector
Contemplating the Change Healthcare cyberattack affected nearly all the medical sector, it has important implications. Even the few medical teams untouched by the hack ought to think about what it means for the way forward for well being care safety.
1. No Group Is an Island
It’s troublesome to disregard that an assault on a single entity impacted nearly all hospitals within the U.S. This large ripple impact highlights how no enterprise on this {industry} is a self-contained unit. Third-party vulnerabilities have an effect on everybody, so due diligence and considerate entry restrictions are important.
Whereas the Change Healthcare hack is an excessive instance, it’s not the primary time the medical sector has seen giant third-party breaches. In 2021, the Crimson Cross skilled a breach of over 515,000 patient records when attackers focused its information storage companion.
Well being care enterprises depend on a number of exterior companies and every of those connections represents one other vulnerability the corporate has little management over. In mild of that threat, it have to be extra selective about who it does enterprise with. Even with trusted companions like UHG, manufacturers should limit information entry privileges as a lot as attainable and demand excessive safety requirements.
2. Centralization Makes the Business Weak
Relatedly, this assault reveals how centralized the {industry} has turn into. Not solely are third-party dependencies frequent, however many organizations depend upon the identical third events. That centralization makes these vulnerabilities exponentially extra harmful, as one assault can have an effect on the entire sector.
The well being care {industry} should transfer previous these single factors of failure. Some exterior dependencies are inevitable, however medical teams ought to keep away from them wherever attainable. Splitting duties between a number of distributors could also be essential to scale back the influence of a single breach.
Regulatory adjustments could assist this shift. Throughout a Congressional listening to on the incident, some lawmakers expressed concerns over consolidation within the well being care {industry} and the cyber dangers it poses. This rising sentiment may result in a sector-wide reorganization, however within the meantime, non-public firms ought to take the initiative to maneuver away from giant centralized dependencies the place they will.
3. Well being Care Companies Want Dependable Response Plans
Well being care organizations also needs to pay attention to the size and price of UHG’s response timeline. It took weeks to revive the downed techniques, even after reportedly paying a $22 million ransom to get better the stolen information. That’s far too lengthy.
Because the ransomware risk grows, companies on this {industry} should create emergency response plans. That features preserving safe, offline backups of all delicate information and guaranteeing information heart redundancy for mission-critical companies. Detailed communication protocols and a step-by-step information for recovering from an assault are additionally essential.
With out an intensive backup and restoration plan, enterprises will find yourself in a state of affairs like Change Healthcare. Ransomware is just too frequent and disruptive to imagine the worst won’t ever occur. Well being care firms want plans A, B and C to reduce the harm when these assaults happen.
4. Well being Care Cybersecurity Should Be Extra Proactive
The Change Healthcare ransomware assault additionally highlights the necessity for proactive safety. Whereas the precise reason behind the breach is unclear, BlackCat sometimes targets vulnerabilities in Distant Desktop Protocol or ConnectWise ScreenConnect. Each of those have patches out there, so proactive vulnerability administration may cease many assaults.
Vulnerabilities can come up in lots of areas of well being care, so detailed penetration testing and automatic assessments are essential to cowl sufficient floor. Automating updates is equally necessary, as attackers transfer rapidly on this sector.
Medical teams should additionally emphasize worker coaching. Errors are among the most persistent threats on this {industry}, with 36% of data breaches stemming from misdelivery alone. Automating as a lot as attainable and thorough cybersecurity coaching for all employees will decrease these dangers.
5. No One Is Secure
If the well being care sector doesn’t take anything away from this incident, it ought to be taught no group is protected. UHG is without doubt one of the {industry}’s largest forces and nonetheless fell sufferer to an assault. Related incidents can definitely have an effect on smaller firms with tighter safety budgets if they will trigger a lot harm to UHG.
It’s not essentially a matter of cybersecurity spending. Traditionally, safety has accounted for simply 6% of medical IT budgets, however greater than half of well being care organizations deliberate to extend their cybersecurity budgets in 2023. This pattern will doubtless proceed into 2024 and past, too. That progress is necessary, however the Change breach reveals cash alone gained’t cease cybercriminals.
Investing in superior safety options is essential. Nonetheless, manufacturers should not turn into complacent simply because they’ve comparatively excessive cybersecurity budgets. Fixed vigilance and emergency restoration planning are nonetheless essential.
The Change Healthcare Hack Highlights the Want for Change
As well being care digitization rises, hospitals and their companion organizations will turn into more and more fashionable targets for ransomware gangs. This newest incident ought to function a wake-up name to this concern. Safety approaches within the sector should change.
The street forward is lengthy and troublesome. Nonetheless, taking up this accountability now can save companies from substantial losses.
Zac Amos covers the roles of cybersecurity and AI in healthcare because the Options Editor at ReHack and a contributor at VentureBeat, The Journal of mHealth, and Healthcare Weekly.
