By Dr. Sergey Demyanov,
Founder & CEO

The Breach That Disrupted an Industry

In January 2025 Change Healthcare confirmed a devastating reality. Over 100 million Americans had their most sensitive health and financial information stolen in a single data breach. This unprecedented incident is believed to be the largest healthcare data breach in United States history. Social Security numbers, medical records, financial data and personal information were exposed, impacting more than one third of the population.

The consequences extended beyond data privacy. Change Healthcare took core systems offline to contain the threat which halted healthcare payments nationwide. Medical providers could not process claims or receive reimbursements for weeks. The operational breakdown disrupted the healthcare system from top to bottom.

But this visible disruption was only the beginning.

How a Single Missing Control Cracked the Entire System

As the investigation unfolded the cause of the breach came into focus. The ransomware group BlackCat also known as ALPHV infiltrated Change Healthcare systems and exfiltrated up to six terabytes of data before launching encryption attacks. But their method of entry was not a zero-day exploit or an advanced attack.

It was a missing security control.

During congressional testimony UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty explained that a remote access server lacked multifactor authentication. This basic security feature required by HIPAA and nearly every modern cybersecurity framework was not enabled.

That missing control allowed attackers to gain access to one of the most sensitive healthcare platforms in the country. The result is a projected cost of 2.5 billion dollars in breach response. This figure does not include lawsuits regulatory penalties or long term reputational damage.

The Race to Identify and Notify

While the breach was discovered in February 2024, notification letters were not issued until June. By October Change Healthcare had notified over 100 million individuals. By January 2025 the number reached approximately 130 million. Some individuals did not receive notifications until nearly a year after the breach.

This delay reveals a difficult truth about breach response. It is not enough to know what data was compromised. Security and legal teams must determine who the data belongs to and what specific information was exposed. Most organizations are not equipped to make those connections quickly.

The Person-First Approach That Changes Everything

Traditional breach response tools identify sensitive data types such as Social Security numbers or insurance policy details. But regulators and legal teams require more. They need to understand who was affected and what was compromised for each individual.

Beagle was built to meet this challenge.

Beagle uses artificial intelligence to connect scattered pieces of sensitive information to the real people they belong to. In addition to identifying sensitive data categories for each document, Beagle extracts the information itself in a structured format and aggregates it across documents, informing who is affected and how much exposure each person faces.

In future breaches this enables organizations to

• Promptly identify level of exposure
• Understand exactly what was compromised for each person
• Launch a targeted and timely notification process

This turns breach response into a structured confident process.

The Path Forward with Person Centric Data Security

The Change Healthcare breach has reshaped the conversation about healthcare cybersecurity. With over 100 million individuals affected and costs projected to exceed two point five billion dollars organizations can no longer rely on legacy approaches to breach response.

The path forward is clear

• Identify sensitive data
• Map it to the people it belongs to
• Act quickly with confidence and clarity

When the next breach happens whether within your own systems or through a vendor the ability to respond at the individual level will determine the outcome.

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