(Reuters) – Disruptions from the Feb. 21 hack at UnitedHealth Group’s tech unit created a cash crunch for small healthcare providers and led to a U.S. health department probe into whether there was a breach of protected health data.
The exact impact of the hack on patient data is not yet clear, but it adds to the growing list of increasingly disruptive cyberattacks on U.S. healthcare companies.
The following is a list of the biggest IT hacks in the sector where patient data were breached:
Type of
Name of Year Individuals company
company affected
Anthem Inc 2015 78,800,000 Health insurer
American 2019 26,059,725 Medical debt
Medical collector
Collection
Agency
HCA 2023 11,270,000 Hospital operator
Healthcare
Premera Blue 2015 11,000,000 Health insurer
Cross
Excellus 2015 9,358,891 Health insurer
Health Plan,
Inc
Perry 2023 8,952,212 Medical transcription
Johnson & service provider
Associates
(PJ&A)
Managed Care 2023 8,861,076 Dental insurer
of North
America
(MCNA
Dental)
Welltok Inc 2023 8,493,379 Healthcare technology
provider
23andMe 2023 6,900,000* Genetic testing
company
PharMerica 2023 5,815,591 Healthcare Provider
Corp
Source: Government data, company reports
Note: Hackers gained access to 14,000 customer accounts on the 23andMe website. From those 14,000 accounts, hackers accessed non-health information, such as names of about 5.5 million customers’ relatives and 1.4 million customers’ extended family members.
(Reporting by Sneha S K and Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru)
