UnitedHealth CEO tells lawmakers the company paid hackers a million ransom

UnitedHealth CEO tells lawmakers the company paid hackers a $22 million ransom

Published

2 years ago

May 1, 2024

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UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty confirmed for the first time that the company paid a $22 million ransom to hackers who breached its subsidiary Change Healthcare and caused widespread fallout across the health-care sector. Witty’s comments were made during a Wednesday hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance.

Change Healthcare provides payment, revenue management and other solutions like e-prescription software. The company disconnected affected systems when the threat was detected, leaving many doctors temporarily unable to fill prescriptions or get paid for their services.

UnitedHealth told CNBC in April that it paid a ransom to try and protect patient data. Earlier reports had discovered a $22 million transfer on Bitcoin’s blockchain, but the company had not confirmed the figure until now.

“As chief executive officer, the decision to pay a ransom was mine,” Witty said. “This was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

UnitedHealth is one of the largest companies in the world, with a roughly $450 billion market cap. Its business unit Optum — which provides care to 103 million customers — and Change Healthcare — which touches one in three patient records — merged in 2022.

Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in his opening remarks that the Change Healthcare breach serves as a “dire warning about the consequences of too-big-to-fail mega-corporations.”

“Companies that are so big have an obligation to protect their customers and to lead on this issue,” Wyden said.

Witty told the committee that cybercriminals accessed Change Healthcare through a server that was not protected by multi-factor authentication, or MFA, which requires users to verify their identity in at least two different ways. He said UnitedHealth now has MFA in place across all external-facing systems.

“As a result of this malicious cyberattack, patients and providers have experienced disruptions and people are worried about their private health data,” Witty said. “To all those impacted, let me be very clear: I am deeply, deeply sorry.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., held up a bright yellow copy of “Hacking for Dummies” during the hearing, saying the breach is UnitedHealth’s responsibility to fix.

“This is some basic stuff that was missed, so shame on internal audit, external audit and your systems folks tasked with redundancy, they’re not doing their job,” Tillis said.

A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that UnitedHealth discovered that a cyber threat actor accessed part of Change Healthcare’s information technology network in late February.

Witty said Change Healthcare’s core systems are back online, though some of its secondary support functions are still being restored.

UnitedHealth said in February that the ransomware group Blackcat was behind the attack. Blackcat, which also goes by the names 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.

UnitedHealth confirmed in April that files containing protected health information and personally identifiable information were compromised in the breach. The company said a data review is ongoing, so it could be months before the company can notify affected individuals.

Witty said Wednesday that UnitedHealth is working with regulators to assess the breach and to inform people if their information has been compromised “as soon as possible.”

Early in March, UnitedHealth launched a temporary funding assistance program to help support providers that have experienced cash flow disruptions due to the cyberattack. There are no fees, interest or other costs on top of the payments, and providers have 45 days to repay the funds once their standard payment operations resume.

During the hearing, Witty said the company has not yet asked anyone for loan repayments, and it will be up to providers to determine when their operations have officially returned to normal.

Witty did not directly disclose whether UnitedHealth will provide additional support to providers who may be contending with other loans and interest payments because of the breach.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., pressed Witty to share how UnitedHealth is working to ensure something like the Change Healthcare breach will not happen again. Witty said the company plans to share what it discovers about the breach with others, adding that there’s a need to focus on reducing the rate of cyberattacks on the health-care sector.

“We are clearly trying to take our responsibility in this attack. We are also trying to learn from it,” he said.

Technology

Nvidia CEO to Cramer: Synopsys deal is ‘culmination of everything I showed you’ over the years

Published

3 hours ago

December 2, 2025

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Nvidia CEO to Cramer: Synopsys deal is 'culmination of everything I showed you' over the years

Technology

Why Jim Cramer thinks the AI trade is breaking up

Published

4 hours ago

December 1, 2025

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Why Jim Cramer thinks the AI trade is breaking up

After years of largely trading together, stocks related to artificial intelligence and the data center are starting to move in different directions, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said.

“The Google complex cohort roared while the OpenAI complex got hammered. Meanwhile, the hyperscalers with great balance sheets held up much better than the ones with strained balance sheets,” he said. “Just keep in mind that things change very fast in the AI space, so what was true last month might not necessarily stay true this month or next year.”

He pinpointed a difference in the performance of AI companies linked to OpenAI — like Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft and AMD — and those affiliated with Alphabet — such as Broadcom and Celestica. He said latter cohort has seen a boost as some investors start to favor the newest iteration Gemini over ChatGPT. Wall Street Street at large is also growing concerned about OpenAI’s massive spending commitments, Cramer continued.

Hyperscalers with strong balance sheets are starting to pull ahead, he continued, noting that companies like Alphabet, Meta and Amazon have the capacity to keep spending big on AI. However, Cramer added, Oracle, CoreWeave and Nebius have more strained balance sheets.

But he warned that the AI space is volatile and said it’s possible another platform will surpass Gemini. Cramer also said he doesn’t want to “paint with too broad of a brush here.” For example, he noted that Nvidia got hit over worries about newfound competition and its ties to OpenAI. However, the AI giant also just reported a blowout quarter with strong guidance and demand for its products still exceeded supply, he continued.

The diversification of the AI trade is a good thing, Cramer suggested, saying it’s positive that investors are starting to think more critically about which of these companies “deserves to be winners.”

“In general, I think it’s actually pretty healthy. I’m never going to root against higher stock prices,” he said. “But there was always something unsettling about the entire AI cohort rallying in lockstep.”

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Technology

Apple names former Microsoft, Google exec to succeed retiring AI chief

Published

5 hours ago

December 1, 2025

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Apple names former Microsoft, Google exec to succeed retiring AI chief

John Giannandrea.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple’s AI chief is stepping down, the company announced Monday in the most visible shake up yet to the iPhone maker’s artificial intelligence group since launching its Apple Intelligence suite in 2024.

John Giannandrea, who held the position since joining the company in 2018, will be replaced by Amar Subramanya, an AI researcher who most recently worked for Microsoft and was previously part of Google’s DeepMind AI unit, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Giannandrea was a senior vice president and reported to Apple CEO Tim Cook. He will continue to serve as an advisor until retiring next spring, Apple said.

The change comes as experts this year have said Apple has fallen behind its tech peers in artificial intelligence, a tech field that has been reinvigorated since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022.

Apple Intelligence, which was intended to put Apple alongside AI leaders like OpenAI and Google, has not been well-reviewed by users and critics. Earlier this year, one of its most critical aspects, a significantly improved Siri assistant, was delayed until 2026, signaling development challenges.

Subramanya will serve as Apple’s vice president of AI, and will report to software chief Craig Federighi, the company said.

In a statement, Cook said Federighi has already been playing a key role in Apple’s AI efforts.

“In addition to growing his leadership team and AI responsibilities with Amar’s joining, Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalized Siri to users next year,” Cook said in a statement.

Subramanya will lead teams working on Apple’s foundation models, research and AI safety. Other teams previously under Giannandrea will move under COO Sabih Khan and services chief Eddy Cue, Apple said.

Although Apple shares are up 16% in 2025, they have lagged many other big tech companies as investors say the iPhone maker has fallen behind its peers that are investing billions into AI data centers, chips and frontier models.

Apple said in August that it was “significantly increasing” the amount it spends on AI, and Cook has said it’s a “profound” technology. Apple has struck a deal with leader OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into some of its products, like Siri.

But Apple is playing a different game than companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta. It’s spending much less on infrastructure for the technology. Apple also prefers its AI to run on its devices, instead of communicating back to more powerful computers in the cloud.

Apple this year also saw Jony Ive, its legendary hardware designer who helped late co-founder Steve Jobs invent the iPhone, sell his startup io for $6.4 billion to OpenAI, with the intention of helping the AI lab release its own hardware.

Analysts say that Apple has built a loyalty moat among its customers since the iPhone launched in 2007, but AI-driven hardware is on its way, with Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last month saying that they’ve already completed their first prototypes and could reveal them in two years or less.

WATCH: Apple will gain more AI functionality over time, says D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria