Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack Highlights Pharmacy Cybersecurity Risks

Summary

The Change Healthcare ransomware attack disrupted pharmacy services and exposed healthcare’s reliance on connected vendors. The article outlines defenses pharmacies can adopt, including MFA, EDR, staff training, vendor risk reviews, and offline backups.

Key points

The article attributes the February 2024 Change Healthcare ransomware attack to ALPHV/BlackCat and says the outage disrupted prescription services and insurance claims.
It reports a roughly $22 million Bitcoin ransom payment and nearly $2 billion in advances to affected healthcare providers.
The article says the attack reportedly began with stolen credentials and no MFA.
Recommended measures include regular risk assessments, staff training, MFA, EDR, tested incident response plans, third-party risk reviews, and offline backups.
The article describes HHS as strengthening cybersecurity guidance and HIPAA enforcement related to ransomware.
It also notes London Drugs closed its 79 locations after a cybersecurity incident in April 2024, while saying the company reported no evidence of data compromise.