Feb. 21: 90% of U.S. pharmacies hit as a pharma billing middleman slammed by ransomware

[thewayne]

The attack was launched by ALPHV, a gang that was hit in December by the FBI and other government agencies in Europe and around the world. They thought they had clobbered them good, seizing servers, shutting down chat rooms, etc. Arrests were made. But they popped up again later and clearly are still effective. They also told their affiliates to hit as much American infrastructure as they wanted in retaliation for the FBI take-down.

This particular hit, two weeks ago, nailed Change Health, part of United HealthCare. They route pharmacy billing to various insurance carriers when you pick up meds. Take out Change, and it's hard to pay for your meds! Some pharmacies can switch to alternatives, others find that a lot harder to do. Some pharmacies offered customers the cash price for meds, others told people they'd have to pay the full price and seek reimbursement from their insurance on their own. And Change Health also handles coupon processing, that also was a no-go.

A great big mess that was ultimately fixed, but a good demonstration of how sensitive our infrastructure is to cyberattack.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-prescription-drug-market-in-disarray-as-ransomware-gang-attacks/ar-BB1jaAe9

Comments

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That is why it's a bad idea to put so many eggs in one basket. If you do that online, it just makes you a bigger target. Sooner or later someone WILL hit it.

The problem is, avoiding this is hard due to other people's stupidity. You can have security or health care, never both together.

[silveradept]

This seems like one of those good cases for ensuring good competition, so that you don't end up with one or two entities handling the whole thing and making themselves pain points and big targets for the stupid and the unscrupulous.

That, or getting rid of the market entirely and forcing the ransomware gangs to deal with a state actor if they want to pull that trick again.

[disneydream06]

When we log onto computers at work, we get the little message that we are part of the United Healthcare mess.
I need to refill a couple of meds soon. Wonder what kind of mess that will be. :o
Hugs, Jon