Change Healthcare Security Incident

The agency warns that a Western organized cybercrime group may be targeting healthcare data by leveraging ransomware variants and AI tools that exploit advanced social engineering. Global Privacy & Security By Andrea Fox , Senior Editor | October 29, 2024 | 11:51 AM Image: Andrew Neel/Pexels The Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center has published a sector alert to advise on mitigations to defend against U.S. and U.K.-based threat actors who initially targeted companies involved in customer relationship management, business-process outsourcing and technology in 2022 and shifted to gaming, hospitality, retail, manufacturing and financial sectors. Scattered Spider, also known by other names, such as Octo Tempest, has become known for its advanced social engineering techniques, including voice phishing using artificial intelligence to spoof victims voices and SIM swapping to obtain initial access to targeted organizations. WHY IT MATTERS According to a revised threat actor profile released by the Healthcare HC3 on October 24, Scattered Spider operatives engage in data extortion and often evade detection by living off the land and modifying their tactics, techniques and procedures. These threat actors have leveraged various remote monitoring and management tools, used multiple information stealers and then deployed various ransomware to victim environments chiefly for financial gain. The agency links to specific mitigation and control measures that it said health systems should familiarize themselves with. These include the mitigations global financial institutions have implemented in response to Scattered Spider activities compiled by the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, joint recommendations the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency offered last year, and others. Updated information from the previous CISA advisory in HC3's new alert of the group's arsenal lists 23 legitimate...

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