By ZACHARY AMOS
The well being care sector is not any stranger to cyberattacks. Nonetheless, massive incidents just like the February 2024 ransomware assault on Change Healthcare are sufficient to shake up the {industry}. Within the wake of such an enormous 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 methods offline. Lots of its digital providers 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 answerable for 2021’s Colonial Pipeline shutdown and several other assaults on well being care organizations all through 2023. This newest act in opposition to Change Healthcare, nonetheless, stands as certainly one of its most disruptive but.
As a result of Change and its father or mother 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 providers 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 cost providers got here again on-line by March 15. As of early April, practically all the things is operating once more, however the monetary fallout continues for a lot of enterprises reliant on UHG, due to substantial backlogs.
What It Means for the Broader Well being Care Sector
Contemplating the Change Healthcare cyberattack affected virtually all the medical sector, it has vital 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 virtually 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 massive third-party breaches. In 2021, the Purple Cross skilled a breach of over 515,000 patient records when attackers focused its knowledge storage associate.
Well being care enterprises depend on a number of exterior providers and every of those connections represents one other vulnerability the corporate has little management over. In gentle of that danger, it should be extra selective about who it does enterprise with. Even with trusted companions like UHG, manufacturers should limit knowledge entry privileges as a lot as attainable and demand excessive safety requirements.
2. Centralization Makes the Trade Weak
Relatedly, this assault reveals how centralized the {industry} has turn out to be. Not solely are third-party dependencies widespread, however many organizations rely on 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 obligatory to scale back the influence of a single breach.
Regulatory adjustments could help 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, personal corporations ought to take the initiative to maneuver away from massive 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 methods, even after reportedly paying a $22 million ransom to get better the stolen knowledge. 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 knowledge and guaranteeing knowledge heart redundancy for mission-critical providers. 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 scenario like Change Healthcare. Ransomware is just too widespread and disruptive to imagine the worst won’t ever occur. Well being care corporations 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 explanation for 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 shortly on this sector.
Medical teams should additionally emphasize worker coaching. Errors are a number of 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 workers will reduce these dangers.
5. No One Is Protected
If the well being care sector doesn’t take anything away from this incident, it ought to study no group is secure. UHG is likely one of the {industry}’s largest forces and nonetheless fell sufferer to an assault. Comparable incidents can actually have an effect on smaller corporations 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 seemingly proceed into 2024 and past, too. That development is necessary, however the Change breach reveals cash alone received’t cease cybercriminals.
Investing in superior safety options is essential. Nonetheless, manufacturers should not turn out to be complacent simply because they’ve comparatively excessive cybersecurity budgets. Fixed vigilance and emergency restoration planning are nonetheless obligatory.
The Change Healthcare Hack Highlights the Want for Change
As well being care digitization rises, hospitals and their associate organizations will turn out to be more and more common targets for ransomware gangs. This newest incident ought to function a wake-up name to this situation. Safety approaches within the sector should change.
The highway forward is lengthy and troublesome. Nonetheless, taking over 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.
