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The chief executive of UnitedHealth is set to testify before a US House subcommittee regarding the Change Healthcare cyber attack that occurred earlier this year.
CEO Andrew Witty will appear before the subcommittee on 1 May to discuss the effect the attack had on its systems and the impact and pressure it put on its providers and their patients.
As initially reported by Reuters, subcommittee on oversight and investigations chair Morgan Griffith and energy and commerce committee chair Cathy Rodgers said they were excited to iron out the details of the breach.
“We look forward to learning more on what happened in the lead-up to, and in the weeks following, the attack,” they said.
“This hearing will help inform the committee as we continue working towards solutions that protect the health and wellbeing of all Americans.”
For those unfamiliar, the Change Healthcare cyber attack was discovered in February, resulting in the company’s systems being taken offline and leaving healthcare providers across the US without claims infrastructure, resulting in many of their operations coming to a standstill.
The attack was originally believed to have been by a Chinese state-sponsored actor but was then claimed by the now-defunct ALPHV (BlackCat). UnitedHealth paid ALPHV US$22 million in ransom payments. However, ALPHV pocketed the money and went dark, leaving the ransomware affiliate behind the breach stranded without pay but with the stolen UnitedHealth data.
As a result, UnitedHealth was still in trouble, particularly when a second ransomware gang, RansomHub, claimed to have the data and threatened to publish it if it did not receive a ransomware payment. Not long after, the group published some data claiming the entirety of it was now for sale to the highest bidder.
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