Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Thursday, September 3, 2020

T-Mobile launches Project 10Million, a $10.7B initiative to give students free wireless hotspots, up to 100 GB/year of free data, and at-cost access to laptops (Kurt Schlosser/GeekWire)

Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
T-Mobile launches Project 10Million, a $10.7B initiative to give students free wireless hotspots, up to 100 GB/year of free data, and at-cost access to laptops

Instagram launches a separate Reels tab for users in India

Reels was launched in India in July and India was the fourth country where Reels was available, after Brazil, Germany and France. In August, Instagram launched Reels in over 50 countries, including the US. https://ift.tt/2DrDLRk https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Bytedance's Resso gains more than a million users in India

Music labels said it could be because of a lack of awareness about Resso's Chinese ownership and the likelihood that ByteDance has been quietly marketing the app through digital platforms. https://ift.tt/3jDNhAe https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Amazon, Flipkart mulls leasing warehouse space to meet festive sales rush

Both companies expect their sales to outpace existing fulfilment centres and are looking for incremental storage areas for the next few months, until they develop their own facilities. https://ift.tt/3jKljD8 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Small offline businesses are increasingly going online: Study

Building industry-specific technology tools for businesses to go online is also a rising trend. https://ift.tt/352F0So https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

A single text is all it took to unleash code-execution worm in Cisco Jabber

Promotional screenshot of collaborative video conferencing app.

Until Wednesday, a single text message sent through Cisco’s Jabber collaboration application was all it took to touch off a self-replicating attack that would spread malware from one Windows user to another, researchers who developed the exploit said.

The wormable attack was the result of several flaws, which Cisco patched on Wednesday, in the Chromium Embedded Framework that forms the foundation of the Jabber client. A filter that’s designed to block potentially malicious content in incoming messages failed to scrutinize code that invoked a programming interface known as “onanimationstart.”

Jumping through hoops

But even then, the filter still blocked content that contained <style>, an HTML tag that had to be included in a malicious payload. To bypass that protection, the researchers used code that was tailored to a built-in animation component called spinner-grow. With that, the researchers were able to achieve a cross-site scripting exploit that injected a malicious payload directly into the internals of the browser built into Jabber.

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https://arstechnica.com

Cyber threat startup Cygilant hit by ransomware

Cygilant, a threat detection cybersecurity company, has confirmed a ransomware attack.

Christina Lattuca, Cygilant’s chief financial officer, said in a statement that the company was “aware of a ransomware attack impacting a portion of Cygilant’s technology environment.”

“Our Cyber Defense and Response Center team took immediate and decisive action to stop the progression of the attack. We are working closely with third-party forensic investigators and law enforcement to understand the full nature and impact of the attack. Cygilant is committed to the ongoing security of our network and to continuously strengthening all aspects of our security program,” the statement said.

Cygilant is believed to be the latest victim of NetWalker, a ransomware-as-a-service group, which lets threat groups rent access to its infrastructure to launch their own attacks, according to Brett Callow, a ransomware expert and threat analyst at security firm Emsisoft.

The file-encrypting malware itself not only scrambles a victim’s files but also exfiltrates the data to the hacker’s servers. The hackers typically threaten to publish the victim’s files if the ransom isn’t paid.

A site on the dark web associated with the NetWalker ransomware group posted screenshots of internal network files and directories believed to be associated with Cygilant.

Cygilant did not say if it paid the ransom. But at the time of writing, the dark web listing with Cygilant’s data had disappeared.

“Groups permanently delist companies when they’ve paid or, in some cases, temporarily delist them once they’ve agreed to come to the negotiating table,” said Callow. “NetWalker has temporarily delisted pending negotiations in at least one other case.”

As ransomware gets craftier, companies must start thinking creatively

Japan's antitrust regulator says it will step up scrutiny of Apple's App Store practices, as gaming industry developers and execs speak out following Epic suit (Takashi Mochizuki/Bloomberg)

Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Japan's antitrust regulator says it will step up scrutiny of Apple's App Store practices, as gaming industry developers and execs speak out following Epic suit — - After Epic suit, Japan's antitrust watchdog probes Apple rules — Japanese game creators break silence on Apple inconsistency

In an amended S-1 filing, Palantir says it won't have independent board governance for up to a year from its listing date (Danny Crichton/TechCrunch)

Danny Crichton / TechCrunch:
In an amended S-1 filing, Palantir says it won't have independent board governance for up to a year from its listing date — When we leaked Palantir's S-1 IPO filing a week and a half ago, one of the more bizarre components that came out of that document was the company's corporate governance.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Facebook Quizzed by Indian Parliamentary Panel Over Political Bias

Opposition lawmakers from a parliamentary panel accused Facebook on Wednesday of favouring the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during a meeting to quiz the social media giant on its content... https://ift.tt/3lMfNS4

PropertyGuru lands $220M from KKR and TPG to conquer Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia’s leading property listing company PropertyGuru is making great strides across the region as it secures a fresh investment of SG$300 million ($220 million), it announced this week.

The proceeds, financed by existing investors KKR and TPG, both buyout titans, will fuel PropertyGuru’s already ambitious push across its main market Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia, where it operates country-specific real estate portals.

The private funding arrived almost a year after the online realtor pulled its plan to list on the Australian Stock Exchange. The company, launched in 2007, was reportedly aiming to raise up to $275 million at the time. And it has been nearly two years since the firm raised $144 million from KKR.

Growth has been encouraging for PropertyGuru in 2019, with a 24% year-over-year revenue growth that beat its own forecasts. The company calls itself Southeast Asia’s largest player, but it’s up against some formidable opponents, including a joint venture set up by close rivals 99.co and iProperty last year. 99.co is itself backed by prominent investors like Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Sequoia Capital and East Ventures.

Online realtors have been making aggressive expansion in Southeast Asia as the region becomes an attractive destination for real estate investors who want to tap the region’s relatively low investment threshold and high rental yield. Many come from neighboring China, which has reined in property speculation in recent years.

PropertyGuru has kept itself busy in 2020 so far, launching a mortgage marketplace in Singapore and a virtual walkthrough feature for property developers as well as seekers at a time when traveling is unsafe or unattainable. Every month, 24.5 million property seekers use the company’s various products to find homes, which number 2.7 million across the region at the time of its latest funding news.

“Our strong financial performance over the last few years has enabled us to invest aggressively and smartly, to build what is today an integrated and differentiated technology platform that caters to the unique opportunities in Southeast Asian markets,” chief executive Hari V. Krishnan said in a statement.

CrowdStrike beats Q2 FY 2021 estimates with total revenue of $199M, up 84% YoY, and subscription revenue of $184.3M, up 89% YoY, as ARR rose 87% YoY to $790.6M (Wallace Witkowski/MarketWatch)

Wallace Witkowski / MarketWatch:
CrowdStrike beats Q2 FY 2021 estimates with total revenue of $199M, up 84% YoY, and subscription revenue of $184.3M, up 89% YoY, as ARR rose 87% YoY to $790.6M — CEO George Kurtz says hackers attempted more breaches in the first half of 2020 than in all of 2019