UnitedHealth on Oct. 22 confirmed to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that 100 million Americans were affected by the Change Healthcare breach in February, making it the largest healthcare breach on record.In terms of actual records lost, the Change Healthcare breach is smaller when compared with the 2013 Yahoo breach, in which more than 3 billion accounts were hacked into, or the National Public Data hack in April 2024 where 2.9 billion records were affected.HHS’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) officially posted the news Oct. 24 on its data breach portal, the first time UnitedHealth formally confirmed the 100 million number. An updated FAQ on the OCR website said that UnitedHealth told OCR that 100 million individuals were sent letters about the breach.Prior to this recent notification, when UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testified to the Senate Finance Committee in May he told lawmakers that "maybe a third" of Americans' protected health information and personally identifiable information (PII) was stolen. This past summer data breach notifications issued by UnitedHealth detailed the broad scope of the attack. Here are some of the highlights of information that was stolen:Health insurance information, such as primary, secondary or other health plans/policies, insurance companies, member/group ID numbers, and Medicaid-Medicare-government payor ID numbers. Health information such as medical record numbers, providers, diagnoses, medicines, test results, images, care and treatment. Billing, claims and payment information, such as claim numbers, account numbers, billing codes, payment cards, financial and banking information, payments made, and balance due). Other personal information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses or state ID numbers, or passport numbers.
Network Security, Breach, Privacy
Change Healthcare breach affected 100 million Americans

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