Techmeme
December 31, 2024, 9:35 AM

Top News

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Letter: the US Treasury says China-backed hackers gained access to some Treasury workstations and unclassified docs; a vendor notified it of the hack on Dec. 8  —  The U.S. Treasury told lawmakers in a letter Monday that it was hit by a cyberattack earlier in December, which the department has attributed to Chinese government hackers.
Thanos Pappas / Carscoops:
Sensitive data of over 800K VW Group EV customers, including GPS coordinates, was exposed on an unprotected AWS database for months before being reported  —  The sensitive information of VW, Audi, Seat, and Skoda EV owners was left exposed on an unprotected and misconfigured cloud storage system for months
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Reuters:
Samsung invests $181M in South Korean robot maker Rainbow Robotics, boosting its stake to 35%, and launches a Future Robotics Office reporting to the CEO  —  Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) became the largest shareholder of South Korea's Rainbow Robotics (277810.KQ), the robotics company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF surpassed $50B in assets in 11 months, marking the fastest-growing ETF debut ever, and helping BTC exceed $100K in mid-December  —  - IBIT has grown to more than $50 billion in assets in 11 months  — US ETFs played a key role in Bitcoin's rally over $100,000
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
The US arrests a US Army soldier on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m, who sold sensitive customer call records stolen from AT&T and Verizon in the Snowflake hack  —  Federal authorities have arrested and indicted a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m …
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Ant Group's payment app Alipay adds an AI-powered image search feature as it tries to become a super app like rival Tencent's WeChat  —  Alipay's move shows how mobile payment platforms are striving to grow their customer base and engender user loyalty in the AI era
Bloomberg:
Sources: Mobvista explores selling mobile ad platform Mintegral after getting interest from buyers like Bain Capital; Mobvista stock in HK surged ~190% in 2024  —  - Company is working with financial adviser on Mintegral sale  — Mobvista's HK-listed shares have climbed almost 190% this year
The Information:
Source: ByteDance keeps using a loophole for US chip sanctions and told suppliers it planned to spend up to $7B to access Nvidia chips outside China in 2025  —  ByteDance continues to use Nvidia's most advanced artificial intelligence chips despite U.S. efforts to block Chinese companies from using them.
Cagan Koc / Bloomberg:
Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest mobile operator, signs a deal with Starlink to roll out text messaging in Q4 2025, and plans to add voice and data in later stages  —  - Kyivstar to offer text messages via Starlink by late 2025  — Starlink terminals are critical to Ukraine's war effort

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More News

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: