UnitedHealth Group has paid more than $3 billion to providers following cyberattack
In this photo illustration the UnitedHealth Group logo displayed on a smartphone screen.
Sheldon Cooper | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
UnitedHealth Group has paid out an additional $1 billion to providers that have been impacted by the Change Healthcare cyberattack since last week, bringing the total amount of funds advanced to more than $3.3 billion, the company said on Wednesday.
UnitedHealth, which owns Change Healthcare, discovered in February that a cyber threat actor had breached part of the unit’s information technology network. Change Healthcare processes more than 15 billion billing transactions annually, and one in every three patient records passes through its systems, according to its website.
The company disconnected the affected systems “immediately upon detection” of the threat, according to a filing with the SEC. The interruptions left many health-care providers temporarily unable to fill prescriptions or get reimbursed for their services by insurers.
Many health-care providers rely on reimbursement cash flow to operate, so the fallout has been substantial. Smaller and mid-sized practices told CNBC they were making tough decisions about how to stay afloat. A survey published by the American Hospital Association earlier this month found that 94% of hospitals have experienced financial disruptions from the attack.
As a result, UnitedHealth introduced its temporary funding assistance program to help providers in need of support. The company said the $3.3 billion in advances will not need to be repaid until claims flows return to normal. Federal agencies like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have introduced additional options to ensure that states and other stakeholders can make interim payments to providers, according to a release.
UnitedHealth has been working to restore Change Healthcare’s systems in recent weeks, and it expects some disruptions will continue into April, according to its website. The company began processing a backlog of more than $14 billion in claims on Friday, and on Wednesday said, “claims have begun to flow.”
Shares of UnitedHealth have fallen more than 6% since the attack was disclosed.
Late last month, the company said the ransomware group Blackcat is behind the attack. Blackcat, also called Noberus and ALPHV, steals sensitive data from institutions and threatens to publish it unless a ransom is paid, according to a December release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Department of State on Wednesday announced it’s offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that could help identify or locate cyber actors linked to Blackcat.
UnitedHealth said Wednesday that it’s “still determining the content of the data that was taken by the threat actor.” The company said a “leading vendor” is analyzing the impacted data. United Health is working closely with law enforcement and third parties like Palo Alto Networks and Google‘s Mandiant to assess the attack.
“We continue to be vigilant, and to date have not seen evidence of any data having been published on the web,” UnitedHealth said. “And we are committed to providing appropriate support to people whose data is found to have been compromised.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, wrote a letter to UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty on Monday requesting information about the “scope and extent” of the breach.
Raskin asked Witty for information about when Change Healthcare notified its clients about the breach, what specific infrastructure and information was targeted and what cybersecurity procedures the company has in place. The committee requested written responses “no later” than April 8.
“Given your company’s dominant position in the nation’s health care and health insurance industry, Change Healthcare’s prolonged outage as a result of the cyberattack has already had ‘significant and far-reaching’ consequences,” Raskin wrote.
The Biden administration also launched an investigation into UnitedHealth earlier this month due to the “unprecedented magnitude of the cyberattack,” according to a statement.
WATCH: UnitedHealth unit begins processing $14 billion medical claims backlog
Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, looks on during the closing bell at the Nasdaq Market in New York City on March 25, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Palo Alto Networks on Tuesday launched new artificial intelligence agents that allow customers to automate certain cybersecurity actions.
The new agents, known as Cortex AgentiX, can handle threat intelligence investigations, respond to email breaches and can be deployed across various security vendor platforms. The tools will be available starting Tuesday through several of Palo Alto’s current cloud services, and will launch as a separate platform next year.
The new AI agents are meant to meet growing demand from customers for more automated capabilities, CEO Nikesh Arora told reporters and analysts last week. Most agents, he added, will have a human middleman to review.
In the age of AI, companies are racing to find new methods to fight increasingly sophisticated and complex cyberattacks. Earlier this month, cybersecurity firm F5‘s stock dropped 10% after it said it suffered a nation-state hack.
Arora said he’s concerned that some enterprises are still “under the illusion that they are extremely secure.”
Palo Alto Networks is in the midst of a watershed shake-up as it integrates its $25 billion acquisition of Israeli identity security vendor CyberArk.
Shortly after the news broke, Arora told CNBC that the deal integrates CyberArk with Palo Alto’s AI and security aspirations.
“We look for great products, a team that can execute in the product, and we let them run it,” he said.
WATCH: AI is changing the world, cybersecurity has to keep up, says Palo Alto Networks
Apple CEO Tim Cook greets customer at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on new product launch day on September 19, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Apple and Microsoft shares rose on Tuesday, pushing the companies over a market cap of $4 trillion.
Both companies are still behind Nvidia, which is the world’s most valuable company with a market cap of over $4.6 trillion. Microsoft previously hit the $4 trillion benchmark in July.
Microsoft stock climbed about 3% on news that the company finalized a 27% stake in OpenAI‘s for-profit business. The company has backed the ChatGPT maker since 2019.
The $4 trillion milestone, a first for Apple, comes as its shares have been surging in recent weeks because iPhone 17 models, released in September, appear to be selling better than their predecessors.
Apple shares are up 25% over the past 3 months. It reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday. Microsoft, which is up 6% in the past 3 months, reports earnings on Wednesday.
“Apple shares are heading into the upcoming earnings print with a greater halo of positivity than any time in the past year,” JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote in a Monday note. He has the equivalent of a buy rating on the stock and raised his price target on Monday to $290 per share.
The company also appears to have avoided the worst-case scenarios related to Trump administration tariffs. Apple has moved much of its U.S.-bound supply chain to India and Vietnam while also maintaining a friendly relationship with the administration around U.S. manufacturing.
“Announcement of an increased pace of domestic investment in combination with a rapid shift in product manufacturing for the US market outside of China (India, Vietnam) has improved Apple’s positioning in the tariff landscape,” Chatterjee wrote.
Correction: This story has been updated to state that Microsoft hit the $4 trillion benchmark in July.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to media following a Q&A at the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters
OpenAI on Tuesday announced it has completed its recapitalization, cementing its structure as a nonprofit with a controlling stake in its for-profit business.
The artificial intelligence startup said its nonprofit is now called the OpenAI Foundation, and it holds an equity stake worth about $130 billion in its for-profit arm. OpenAI said its for-profit arm is now a public benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC.
Under the new structure, the OpenAI Foundation will hold a 26% stake in the for-profit, with 47% held by current and former employees and investors.
Microsoft, which has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI and backed the company as early as 2019, said it supports OpenAI’s recapitalization and now holds an investment in the PBC that is valued at $135 billion, or roughly 27% of the company on an as-converted diluted basis.
The company said it held a 32.5% stake in the for-profit on an as-converted basis, excluding OpenAI’s recent funding rounds.
Microsoft shares are up 3% Tuesday.
“The more OpenAI succeeds as a company, the more the non-profit’s equity stake will be worth, which the non-profit will use to fund its philanthropic work,” OpenAI said in a blog post.
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but has become one of the fastest-growing commercial entities on the planet in recent years. The startup is currently valued at $500 billion.
In 2024, the company announced plans to convert into a for-profit company, which would have wrested control from the nonprofit and kept it as a separate arm. But after facing pressure from civic leaders and ex-employees, OpenAI said in May that its nonprofit would retain control.
OpenAI Foundation will make an initial $25 billion commitment to work to accelerate health breakthroughs and technical solutions to AI resilience, OpenAI said Tuesday.
As part of the announcement, Microsoft said OpenAI has agreed to purchase an incremental $250 billion of Azure services, though Microsoft will no longer have a first right of refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider.
The companies also outlined several additional changes to their partnership.
When OpenAI says it has reached Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which is a term for an AI system that rivals or exceeds human intelligence, that claim will have to be verified by an independent expert panel, Microsoft said. The revenue share agreement between the two companies will remain until that panel verifies AGI.
Microsoft can now pursue AGI independently or in collaboration with third parties, and OpenAI can now jointly develop some products with third parties.
OpenAI remains Microsoft’s frontier model partner. Microsoft said its IP rights for both models and products are extended through 2032, and include models post-AGI. OpenAI’s consumer hardware is excluded from Microsoft’s IP rights.
“As we step into this next chapter of our partnership, both companies are better positioned than ever to continue building great products that meet real-world needs, and create new opportunity for everyone and every business,” Microsoft said in a statement.
Microsoft is slated to report fiscal first-quarter 2026 results after market close on Wednesday.
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