UnitedHealth CEO: 'Decision to pay ransom was mine'

ALPHV (BlackCat) affiliates used compromised credentials to access a Change Healthcare Citrix portal that lacked multi-factor authentication, moved laterally, exfiltrated large volumes of protected health information, and deployed ransomware—causing widespread outages for hospitals and pharmacies; UnitedHealth subsequently paid $22 million, reported remediation efforts and major financial impact (estimated $870M so far, potentially $1.6B), and noted other criminal groups also published or claimed data from the incident.