Moody’s: Cyberattack on UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N) Raises Credit Concerns

The recent hacking of the American healthcare services company UnitedHealth Group appears to hurt its credit.

Credit rating agency Moody’s assessed on the 24th (local time) that the recently reported hacking on UnitedHealth Group damages the company’s credit.

Moody’s stated that the cyber security attack on Change Healthcare, a technology division of UnitedHealth Group that confused pharmacies across the United States, could have financial and reputational impacts on the company.

On the other hand, credit rating agency Fitch Ratings anticipates that this incident will not affect UnitedHealth’s rating, and the company’s rating outlook is currently stable.

Additionally, Fitch assessed that despite appropriate resources needed to deal with business disruptions and immediate threats, it does not expect UnitedHealth’s capital position or financial performance to be materially affected.

According to regulatory documents filed by UnitedHealth, UnitedHealth Group has not yet determined whether the cyber security incident will affect its financial results.

Change Healthcare expressed high confidence that this attack did not affect the Optum, UnitedHealthcare, and UnitedHealth Group systems.

Furthermore, they added, “We are exploring various approaches to restore the affected environment, and we will not take shortcuts or take on additional risk when restoring the system to online status.”

Various pharmacy chains have reported disruptions since the suspension of Change Healthcare’s operations.