The costs of the UnitedHealth cyber attack are significant, not only the financial costs associated with remediating the attack, but the incident…

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The costs of the UnitedHealth cyber attack are significant, not only the financial costs associated with remediating the attack, but the incident has been felt across U.S healthcare system and society.

If one sat down with the boards of UnitedHealth and Change Healthcare in January 2024 and asked them to create a cause and effect of a cyber attack. One wonders if they would have realistically evaluated the threat, vulnerabilities, risks and costs to be significantly north of $1 billion. A figure that no insurance policy will cover.

The enclosed article only identifies the release of capital by United Health to backstop cash flow issues with suppliers. The cost of capital to United Health on the $2 Billion has got to be significant, interest alone could be costing the company well over $100k a day. Then add operating costs to mitigate the incident, insurance claims, class actions, brand and reputation damage and add on to the alleged $22million ransom payment. In addition to the costs to customers and suppliers. Then there are the costs to the health and wellbeing of patients, the broader costs to society. Finally the regulators are actively involved in the incident, and will ask the board to account for their management of cybersecurity risks.

One suspects that the response by the boardroom during a desktop would have been ‘don’t be ridiculous’, or something stronger ‘$£%$£……and close the door on your way out’. Something that the board of Equifax would also have said back in 2019.

Cyber attacks have an all to real impact on companies, an impact that is progressively extending across society as cyber attacks target CNI and supply chains.

@Thaddeus Dziekanowski Brian D. McCarthy Rachel V. Rose, JD, MBA Rich Waite, M.Ed. George Sawyer Bob Dix Ryan Buckner Adam Perella Gerry Kennedy

Veritas GRC U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

#cybersecurity #cyberriskmanagement #cyberregulation #governance

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