Techmeme
July 19, 2021, 8:20 AM

Top News

Dana Priest / Washington Post:
Investigation: Israel-based NSO Group's malware infected 23 phones belonging to government officials, reporters, execs, and activists, out of 67 checked  —  Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues.  Recently, she has investigated Russian …
More: The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, Amnesty International, The Guardian, The Citizen Lab, The Guardian, Forbidden Stories, Washington Post, Washington Post, CNET, Silicon Republic, Haaretz, BBC, Insider, ZDNet, Associated Press, The Hacker News, Washington Post, iThinkDifferent, The Verge, Washington Post, New York Times, Engadget, The Register, Bloomberg, Access Now, MediaNama, Reuters, HackRead, The Week, SiliconANGLE, Gizmodo, New York Post, news.com.au, The Overspill, TNW, phonearena.com, Financial Times, Slashdot, CyberNews, AppleInsider, Mashable, CNBC, The Hill, and HotHardware.com News
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak:
[Thread] Amnesty International and Citizen Lab found zero-click iMessage exploits being deployed against iPhones, even with iOS 14.6, to install malware  —  THREAD with a couple of interesting bits from @AmnestyTech's new report on what they learned from looking for NSO Group's spyware on phones https://www.amnesty.org/...
Washington Post:
Of the 67 phones Amnesty's Security Lab probed, 34 were iPhones, of which 23 showed signs of a successful Pegasus infection and 11 showed attempts at infection  —  The text delivered last month to the iPhone 11 of Claude Mangin, the French wife of a political activist jailed in Morocco, made no sound.
Ina Fried / Axios:
US, NATO, and other allies collectively blame China for malicious cyberattacks, including a March attack that exploited a flaw in Microsoft's Exchange Server  —  The U.S., NATO and other allies are collectively calling out China for malicious cyberattacks, including a March attack that exploited a flaw in Microsoft's Exchange Server.
GlobeNewswire News Room:
Zoom says it will acquire Five9, which makes cloud-based call center software for sales, marketing, and support, in an all-stock deal valued at ~$14.7B  —  The combination of Zoom's robust communications platform with Five9's intelligent cloud contact center will enable organizations …
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom:
[Thread] The response to Biden from Facebook's VP of Integrity is a textbook example of bluster and obfuscation  —  After Biden's criticism of @Facebook for their inaction on antivax propaganda, @fbnewsroom is going on the offensive. They issued a press release that is a textbook example of bluster, obfuscation, and agnatogenesis. Here's the link. Let's take a look. https://about.fb.com/...
Guy Rosen / About Facebook:
Facebook says their data shows a 50% decline in vaccine hesitancy among US users, refuting Biden's claim that it's “killing people” by allowing COVID-19 misinfo  —  At a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies.
Muvija M / Reuters:
Tencent to buy British video game developer Sumo Games for $1.27B, a 43% premium on Sumo's Friday closing price  —  Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) will buy video game company Sumo Group (SUMO.L) in a deal that values the British firm at 919 million pounds ($1.27 billion), the companies said on Monday.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Overview of short-form audio apps like Racket, Beams, and Quest that let users record and share voice clips, as Facebook aims to enter the space with Soundbites  —  “So I've identified a few metrics and KPIs that I'm going to start tracking in order to better my overall life experience,” …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sources: LiveU, an Israel-based developer of live broadcasting and streaming tech used by 3K+ media organizations, to be acquired by PE firm Carlyle for $400M  —  Streaming is the name of the content game these days, and now one of the companies that builds tech to do this from anywhere in the world is getting acquired.

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