Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (UNICHA1769088935)
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Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of Change Healthcare's Ransomware and lateral movement inside company's environment.
- Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
- How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
- How this cyber incident impacts Change Healthcare Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
- Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.
Full Incident Analysis Transcript
In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Change Healthcare breach identified under incident ID UNICHA1769088935.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Change Healthcare's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/change-healthcare, the number of followers: 146919, the industry type: IT Services and IT Consulting and the number of employees: 4838 employees
After the initial compromise, the video explains how Rankiteo's incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score. The incident score before the incident was 100 and after the incident was 100 with a difference of 0 which is could be a good indicator of the severity and impact of the incident.
In the next step of the video, we will analyze in more details the incident and the impact it had on Change Healthcare and their customers.
On 21 February 2024, Change Healthcare disclosed Ransomware issues under the banner "Ransomware Attack on Change Healthcare Disrupts U.S. Healthcare Network".
A ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a key subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, has caused widespread disruption across the U.S.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Pharmacies, hospitals, insurance providers, prescription processing, billing, and claims submissions systems, and exposing 6 terabytes of sensitive data, including patient records, insurance details, and financial information.
In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Disconnected critical systems to contain the breach, and stakeholders are being briefed through Alerts issued by American Hospital Association (AHA) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The case underscores how Ongoing, teams are taking away lessons such as The incident underscores the growing threat of ransomware to critical infrastructure, particularly in sectors reliant on interconnected digital systems, and recommending next steps like Healthcare providers urged to implement contingency plans; enhance cybersecurity measures to protect patient data, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Alerts issued by AHA and HHS urging providers to implement contingency plans.
Finally, we try to match the incident with the MITRE ATT&CK framework to see if there is any correlation between the incident and the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a knowledge base of techniques and sub-techniques that are used to describe the tactics and procedures of cyber adversaries. It is a powerful tool for understanding the threat landscape and for developing effective defense strategies.
MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis
Rankiteo's analysis has identified several MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques associated with this incident, each with varying levels of confidence based on available evidence. Under the Initial Access tactic, the analysis identified Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating forced the company to disconnect critical systems to contain the breach and Supply Chain Compromise: Compromise Software Supply Chain (T1195.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including supply chain such as true, and key subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group. Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203) with moderate confidence (60%), with evidence including ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, and blackCat/ALPHV ransomware group. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating impacted pharmacies, hospitals, and insurance providers (interconnected systems). Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with moderate confidence (50%), with evidence including 6 terabytes of sensitive data exfiltrated, and high-value healthcare systems affected. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) with moderate to high confidence (80%), with evidence including blackCat/ALPHV ransomware group, and data encryption such as Yes (ransomware encryption) and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating disconnected critical systems to contain the breach. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Credentials from Password Stores (T1555) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating patient records, insurance details, financial information compromised. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified File and Directory Discovery (T1083) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including 6 terabytes of sensitive data exfiltrated, and high sensitivity of data. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating 6 terabytes of sensitive data, including patient records, insurance details. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001) with moderate confidence (60%), with evidence including blackCat/ALPHV ransomware group, and dark web leak site listing. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including 6 terabytes of sensitive data exfiltrated, and data exfiltration such as Yes. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including data encryption such as Yes (ransomware encryption), and blackCat/ALPHV ransomware group, Defacement: Internal Defacement (T1491.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating widespread disruption across U.S. healthcare system, and Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating delays in prescription processing, billing, and claims submissions. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- Change Healthcare Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/change-healthcare/incident/UNICHA1769088935
- Change Healthcare CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/change-healthcare
- Change Healthcare Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/unicha1769088935-unitedhealth-group-change-healthcare-ransomware-february-2024/
- Change Healthcare CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/change-healthcare/history
- Change Healthcare CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2026/01/22/ZBFCQGR75ZD75HEY4GH75N4BBU/
- Rankiteo A.I CyberSecurity Rating methodology: https://www.rankiteo.com/Images/rankiteo_algo.pdf
- Rankiteo TPRM Scoring methodology: https://static.rankiteo.com/model/rankiteo_tprm_methodology.pdf