UHG and Optum Cyber Attacks
The following email was sent by Columbia University Information Technology on Thursday, February 22, 2024. An update was sent on Friday, February 23.
UPDATE:
This is an update on the ongoing developments regarding the UnitedHealth Group and Optum healthcare insurance providers' cyber security attacks.
In collaboration with our partners at New York Presbyterian and Weill Cornell, it has been determined that connectivity to UnitedHealth Group and Optum healthcare networks can be reinstated. Therefore, we are restoring email service from the following domains:
- Optum.com
- Unitedhealthgroup.com
- Uhc.com
- Uhg.com
These links will be restored on the My.Columbia.edu site, and you can feel safe using these sites.
However, Change Healthcare and Caremount networks are not yet clear, and emails from these domains will continue to be blocked until further notice:
- Changehealthcare.com
- Caremount.com
For questions or assistance, please submit a ticket to the CUIT Service Desk, email [email protected], or call 212-854-1919.
We appreciate your patience and will send a follow-up email when we can safely lift this precautionary measure.
As you may know from news reports, UnitedHealth Group and Optum healthcare insurance providers have suffered crippling cyber security attacks in the past 24 hours and, as a result, have recommended that all partners temporarily discontinue all direct connections to their systems until further notice. In response, Columbia and its partners, New York Presbyterian and Weill Cornell, have taken the necessary steps to ensure our systems and your data are safe.
Additionally, to minimize the risk this external cyber security event presents to our computing environment, we have taken the extraordinary precaution of blocking email from the following domains:
- Optum.com
- Changehealthcare.com
- Caremount.com
- Unitedhealthgroup.com
- Uhc.com
- Uhg.com
Please do not connect to these domains from any device. If you believe you should have received an email from one of these domains but did not, you can contact CUIT to verify its quarantine status. Once we have received assurance that UHG and Optum are no longer a threat to our community, we will lift the block and allow email communications to resume.
For questions or assistance, please submit a ticket to the CUIT Service Desk, email [email protected], or call 212-854-1919.
We appreciate your patience and will send a follow-up email when we can safely lift this precautionary measure.
Thank you,
Columbia University Information Technology