UnitedHealth Group reported an $872 million affect on its Q1 earnings as a result of ransomware assault disrupting the U.S. healthcare system since February.
Regardless of the $872 million hit on its quarterly $7.9 billion earnings, UnitedHealth says its first quarter revenues grew nearly $8 billion yr over yr to $99.8 billion.
The ransomware assault’s affect consists of $593 million in direct cyberattack response prices and $279 million on account of enterprise disruptions.
UnitedHealth additionally stated the cyberattack can have a complete affect of $0.74 per share in Q1, with full-year 2024 impacts estimated at $1.15 to $1.35 per share.
“Out of prudence, due to the potential for the cyberattack to affect claims receipt timing, the company reflected an additional $800 million of claims reserves,” the corporate added.
“Cash flows from operations from the first quarter 2024 were $1.1 billion and were affected by approximately $3 billion due to the company’s cyberattack response actions, including funding acceleration to care providers, and were additionally impacted due to the timing of public sector cash receipts.”
Change Healthcare is the most important fee trade platform utilized by medical doctors, healthcare suppliers, and over 70,000 pharmacies inside the US healthcare system.
UnitedHealth additionally has contracts with over 1.6 million well being professionals and eight,000 healthcare amenities in all 50 states. Presently, the corporate is nonetheless engaged on mitigating the cyberattack’s affect on shoppers and care suppliers whereas increasing monetary help to affected suppliers.
Ransomware assault adopted by double-extortion
The February breach prompted UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum to close down Change Healthcare techniques and providers, stopping medical doctors and healthcare amenities throughout the U.S. from billing or sending claims to insurance coverage firms.
Whereas first linked by the corporate to “nation-state” hackers, the assault was later linked to the BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware group who claimed they stole 6 TB of knowledge through the breach,
The ransomware gang shut down its operation and seemingly pulled an exit rip-off by stealing a $22 million ransom paid to Notchy, the affiliate who coordinated the assault.
In mid-March, the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies additionally introduced an investigation into whether or not protected well being info was stolen within the Change Healthcare ransomware assault.
UnitedHealth Q1 2024 report comes in the future after the RansomHub extortion gang began leaking screenshots of paperwork allegedly containing affected person and company knowledge stolen from Change Healthcare’s compromised techniques.
This knowledge comes from former ALPHV affiliate Notchy, who has now partnered with RansomHub to extort Change Healthcare once more.
The menace actors warned on Monday that Change Healthcare has 5 days to pay a brand new ransom to cease the info from being bought to the best bidder.
