NEW YORK, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- UnitedHealth Group said hackers stole records of about 190 million people in last February's attack on its Change Healthcare subsidiary.
The health care giant's updated figure, disclosed last week, is nearly twice as large as the company's previous estimate of 100 million victims.
"The attack on UnitedHealth-owned Change Healthcare disrupted the health care industry because doctors and hospitals were unable to collect payments for weeks when computer systems went down," reported USA Today on Wednesday about the development. "But the headache extends to more than 1 in 2 Americans who now must wonder how their compromised records will be used."
These large-scale attacks in which individuals' identification, bank records and health data are exposed remind consumers of the need to stay "hypervigilant," said John Dwyer, director of security research at Stow, Ohio-based Binary Defense, a cybersecurity company. ■