Change Healthcare said it has reinstated Amazon cloud services for two of its platforms a month into a cyberattack against the company.
The UnitedHealth Group and Optum subsidiary said March 20 it restored Amazon Web Services from backups for Assurance, a claims and remittance management program, and claims clearinghouse Relay Exchange. Change said it rebuilt authentication services for the solutions on a new network with the help of cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Networks and Mandiant, a Google subsidiary. The company said it is also testing the security of the external-facing parts of those applications.
Change took IT systems offline Feb. 21 after experiencing a ransomware attack that disrupted payment and pharmacy services for hospitals, health systems and healthcare organizations across the country. The company has since been incrementally restoring its applications. Cybersecurity experts have told Becker's that cyberattacks of this magnitude typically last at least a month.
"We have taken every precaution and safety measure and implemented several rounds of security protocols — both internally and with our third-party partners — to ensure complete confidence in the platform," Change said March 20. "As we've stated, our Optum, UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group systems remain safe and were not affected by this issue. We regularly scan those environments and continue to validate they were not impacted. Anything currently functioning means we have full confidence in it."