Just_Super A prominent Senate Democrat is calling on HHS to mandate that health care companies have a certain level of cybersecurity defenses in the wake of UnitedHealth Group's ( NYSE: UNH ) February ransomware attack . Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (Ore.) said that the current practice from the agency of industry self-regulation and voluntary best practices is "woefully inadequate.
" "HHS must follow the lead of other federal regulators in mandating cybersecurity best practices necessary to protect the health care sector from further, devastating, easily-preventable cyberattacks," he wrote in a June 5 letter. Wyden cited HHS statistics that there were more than 600 data breaches reported by health care organizations involving more than 42 million Americans in 2022. "The current epidemic of successful cyberattacks against the health care sector is a direct result of HHS's failure to appropriately regulate and oversee this industry, harming patients, providers, and our national security," he noted .
The June 5 letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra follows a May 30 letter from Wyden to the FTC and SEC to investigate the breach. More on UnitedHealth UnitedHealth Group: Don't Miss Out On This Dividend Growth Beast UnitedHealth Group: A Wonderful Business At A Discounted Price UnitedHealth Group: A Quality Compounder With A Recent Pullback UnitedHealthcare invests $1.5M to expand school-based healthcare services across Iowa UnitedHealth snaps six straight sessions of l.
