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Cyber Attack Against Military Health Care, and Others

Orange Gerald
@Jose
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Maybe there has been coverage on this but I missed it until I went looking. I am a military retiree and this affects people in that category, and some civilian health care providers are also impacted.

On Monday I called the local USAF base where my primary care provider is located to get a prescription renewed. I received a return call on Tuesday that “the system is down,” and a further call on Wednesday that I could go to a commercial pharmacy instead if I chose. I went for that option and was charged a co-payment (not much, fortunately). This is why I prefer to go to the base pharmacy.

This morning I discovered there was more to the story. One of the things I found was this:

Cyberattack Against Commercial Prescription Program Hamstrings Military Pharmacies Around the World

Pharmacies at military bases worldwide have been facing disruptions because of a cyberattack that shut down the commercial prescription processing program the military health system uses, the Defense Health Agency said in a statement this week. Change Healthcare, one of the largest prescription processors in the U.S., first disclosed Wednesday that its network had been disrupted by a cyberattack. The issue was still unresolved as of Friday morning, according to the most recent update posted online by the company. UnitedHealth Group, which owns Change Healthcare, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it suspects a nation-state is behind the attack.

Oh. This has been going on for more than a week.

And there’s this – our health records may have been stolen:

UnitedHealth hackers say they stole 'millions' of records, then delete statement

[Hacking group] Blackcat said it stole data from partners including Medicare, the U.S. military medical health agency Tricare, CVS Health (CVS.N) and other companies.

I know there are some veterans here. I advise you, Medicare recipients, and basically everyone else, to check your prescriptions and plan for possible delays getting them refilled.

This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.

Discussion (6)

  • CACrabtree@CACrabtree

    Although private business isn't all that great, the Federal Government has the worst computer security in the world.

    Thanks to them, all of my personal info is safely sitting in Red China courtesy of the OPM hack of 2015.

  • David Foster@DavidFoster

    Interference with an aircraft, by damaging it or stealing components from it, is a federal crime that can lead to the death penalty if it results in an accident in which anyone is killed.

    The same approach should be taken with intentional damage to a medical system.

  • Front Seat Cat@FrontSeatCat

    Wow - this is bizarre. A week ago AT&T experienced major disruptions and nothing was reported to be the cause.

    Then I heard about pharmacy problems, but I did not know it was military also!

    We lost power last week at 2:00 am on Wed. We didn't know it, but our cat woke us up at 5:00 AM with a ball with a bell in it! We noticed the outage - it affected over 5000 people and did not get resolved until 4:00 PM that afternoon. They said the cause was damage to their equipment - no storms - no nothing.

    The guy that cleans our pool lives in another county and said that there were all kinds of problems where he lived with power lines - he saw smoke and many could not get back in their houses. We live in FL.

    The night before, Tuesday, I had the radio on and about 7 PM or so there was silence, then the beeping sounds that you hear when they are running a 'test by the emergency broadcasting system' except they never occur in the evening, only daytime, and there was no voice or announcement.

    When power resumed at our house, I turn on TV to learns about the massive wildfires in Texas!

    It has been eerie to say the least. And you are right to stock up on the meds along with water and other necessities - keep bags of ice in the freezer.

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