The fallout from the massive February 2024 cyberattack against Change Healthcare continues more than a year later. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield of Maryland is the latest company to sue over the data breach.
The lawsuit, filed in a Maryland state court in late February, alleges that the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary’s cybersecurity standards were insufficient to prevent the attack. The Russian ransomware group responsible for the cyberattack used stolen credentials to remotely access a company portal that didn’t have multifactor authentication. CareFirst is seeking $900,000 in damages, along with interest and attorney fees.
Recommended For You
In its lawsuit, CareFirst said it lost a large amount of data related to employer accounts and its Medicare Advantage business, the Baltimore Business Journal reported. The company said it had to reallocate $25 million in investment funds as loans to providers struggling to operate as a result of the attack.
Change Healthcare processes nearly 15 billion transactions annually, interacting with 1 in 3 patient records. The attack sent shockwaves through the health care industry, disrupting care delivery and threatening the operational stability of hospitals, insurers and pharmacies nationwide. In total, the attack exposed the personal and health data of 190 million individuals and is considered the largest in health care history.
Late last year, Nebraska sued Change Healthcare, alleging that the company violated state consumer protection and data security laws because of inadequate security measures. The attack has cost UnitedHealth more than $3 billion, and the company has issued more than $9 billion in loans to affected providers.
Meanwhile, Change Healthcare continues to send out data breach notifications, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune recently reported. A Minnesota resident received a notice in late February that his data was breached in the ransomware attack, while Google searches for Change Healthcare are up across the state, the story said. "Mailings have been ongoing and will continue to go out to help ensure notification," UnitedHealth Group said in a statement to the newspaper.
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield serves 3.5 million groups and individuals in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It has a 75 percent market share in the state and also serves more than 626,000 members in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.