In fact, ransomware attacks on health care targets were on the rise even before the Change Healthcare attack, which crippled the United Healthcare subsidiary's ability to process insurance payments on behalf of its health care provider clients starting in February of this year.
Liska still points to the April spike visible in Recorded Future's data in particular as a likely follow-on effect of Change's debacle-not only the outsize ransom that Change paid to AlphV, but also the highly visible disruption that the attack caused. 'Because these attacks are so impactful, other ransomware groups see an opportunity,' Liska says.
He also notes that health care ransomware attacks have continued to grow even compared to overall ransomware incidents, which stayed relatively flat or fell overall: April, for instance, saw 1,153 incidents compared to 1,179 in the same month of 2023.
When WIRED reached out to United Healthcare for comment, a spokesperson for the company pointed to the overall rise in health care ransomware attacks beginning in 2022, suggesting that the overall trend predated Change's incident.
#ransomware-attacks #healthcare-industry #data-security #cybersecurity-trends #impact-of-cyberattacks
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