Tag Archive for: TechCrunch

Luta Security and Emsisoft discuss how to fight ransomware at Disrupt – TechCrunch

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Ransomware is an exponentially growing global threat. Here are just a few examples from 2022: Costa Rica declared a national emergency after a $20 million ransomware attack; ransomware caused one of the biggest U.S. health data breaches; and ransomware topped CSO’s list of nine hot cybersecurity trends.

To hammer the point home, 14 of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors in the U.S. experienced ransomware attacks during 2021, according to a February 2022 report from the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency.

The urgent threat ransomware presents is why we’re excited to announce that Katie Moussouris, the founder and CEO at Luta Security, and Brett Callow, a threat analyst at Emsisoft, will join us onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18–20 in San Francisco.

In a conversation called “Winning the war on ransomware,” Moussouris and Callow will talk about why ransomware is escalating at such an alarming rate, define what “winning the war” looks like, and share what startup founders need to know — and what steps they can take — to protect their customers and their business.

A self-described computer hacker with more than 20 years of professional cybersecurity experience, Moussouris has a distinct perspective on security research, vulnerability disclosure, bug bounties and incident response. She serves in three advisory roles for the U.S. government as a member of the Cyber Safety Review Board, the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and the Information Systems Technical Advisory Committee.

Moussouris worked with the U.S. Department of Defense where she led the launch of Hack the Pentagon, the government’s first bug bounty program. During her tenure with Microsoft, she worked on initiatives such as Microsoft’s bug bounty programs and Microsoft Vulnerability Research.

Moussouris serves as an advisor to the Center for Democracy and Technology, and she is also a cybersecurity fellow at New America and the National Security Institute.

A Vancouver Island–based threat analyst for cybersecurity company Emsisoft, Brett Callow lives life with an ear to the ground, monitoring emerging cyberthreat trends and…

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a16z’s Chris Dixon shares his insights on crypto at TechCrunch Disrupt – TechCrunch

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Love it, hate it or barely understand it, crypto continues to draw massive amounts of VC money, despite recent token turbulence casting a shadow over the still-nascent sector. Case in point, in May the venerable Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) closed a crypto megafund for a whopping $4.5 billion. 

A16z’s new fund comes hot on the heels of last year’s $2.2 billion Crypto Fund III. That’s a pile of newfangled faith from an investment firm founded back in 2009. All of this activity is why we’re thrilled to announce that Chris Dixon, the founder and managing partner at a16z Crypto, will join us onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18–20 in San Francisco.

At a time when crypto ecosystems, like Terra and its UST stablecoin, collapse and take billions of dollars down with them, plenty of investors and entrepreneurs remain skeptical. Yet others — like a16z — are doubling down on crypto, NFTs and other uncharted web3 products. 

You can bet we’ll ask Dixon about the current crypto market and why he remains bullish. We’re also curious to hear his take on Bill Gates’ opinion that NFTs represent an asset class based on the greater fool theory. We think this promises to be a rich and spicy conversation.

Chris Dixon is a general partner and has been at Andreessen Horowitz since 2012. He founded and leads a16z Crypto, which invests in web3 technologies through its dedicated funds.

Previously, Dixon co-founded two startups — SiteAdvisor and Hunch — serving as CEO at both. SiteAdvisor, an internet security company, was acquired by McAfee in 2006, while Hunch, a recommendation-tech company, was acquired by eBay in 2011.

Dixon also co-founded Founder Collective, a seed venture fund, and he has personal angel investments in various technology companies.

TechCrunch Disrupt takes place on October 18–20 in San Francisco. Buy your pass now and save up to $1,100. Student, government and nonprofit passes are available for just $295. Prices increase September 16.

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German semiconductor giant Semikron says hackers encrypted its network – TechCrunch

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Semikron, a German manufacturer that produces semiconductors for electric vehicles and industrial automation systems, has confirmed it has fallen victim to a cyberattack that has resulted in data encryption.

“Semikron is already in the process of dealing with the situation so that workflows and all related processes can continue without disruption for both employees and customers as soon as possible,” a Semikron spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Semikron declined to disclose the nature of the cyberattack, but all signs point to ransomware. The semiconductor maker said in a statement that hackers claim to have “exfiltrated data from our system,” adding that the incident has led to a “partial encryption of our IT systems and files.” This suggests the malicious actor behind the attack has used the double extortion ransomware tactic, whereby cybercriminals exfiltrate a victim’s sensitive data in addition to encrypting it.

The Nuremberg-based group company, which claims to power 35% of the wind turbines installed globally each year, declined to say who was behind the attack nor whether it received a ransom demand. However, Bleeping Computer reports that Semikron was the victim of the LV ransomware, with the hackers apparently stealing 2 terabytes of documents.

LV ransomware has been in operation since at least 2020 and uses a modified variant of REvil ransomware, according to cybersecurity company Secureworks. According to the group’s dark web blog, which doesn’t yet list Semikron as a victim, the gang targets companies that allegedly do not meet data protection obligations.

“They rejected to fix their mistakes, they rejected to protect this data in the case when they could and had to protect it,” its dark web blog states. “These companies preferred to sell their private information, their employees’ and customers’ personal data.”

It’s unclear what data was exfiltrated from Semikron’s systems, and the company declined to say how many customers and employees are potentially impacted. Semikron has over 3,000 employees in 24 offices and 8 production sites worldwide across Germany, Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Slovakia, and the…

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Just like Actuator, only on a Wednesday – TechCrunch

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Yep, Actuator is coming to you a day early — mostly because it felt a bit weird to drop the robotics newsletter right in the middle of the robotics conference. Good news for everyone who’s sick of me telling you to SIGN UP FOR FREE RIGHT HERE: This is the last you’ll be hearing that from me for a while. Of course, next week’s edition is going to be filled with some of the event’s highlights, but at least it’s not a sales pitch, right?

Oh, and speaking of pitches (I know, I know), we just announced the four early stage firms that are participating in our Robotics Pitch-Off. Congrats to:

  • Endiatx – “Robot pills for hardcore telemedicine, initially for upper endoscopies.”
  • Gather AI –  “The world’s first autonomous inventory monitoring platform for the supply chain using off-the-shelf drones.”
  • Touchlab – “A compliant “e-skin” sensor technology to give machines a sense of touch. Our latest e-skin, Triaxial, senses normal and shear forces, enabling novel functionalities such as slip detection (with autonomous compensation) and even object identification through touch alone.”
  • Mobilio – “A single sensor package that enables safe movement for 400M users of canes, walkers, crutches, and wheelchairs. The device senses the user’s environment to avoid hazards and the user’s movements to ensure proper device use.”

Congrats to all. We had a ton of submissions this year and our illustrious judges were impressed with everyone who made it into the pitch-off. Keep an eye on all of these startups.

We’ve been going hard on promotion in the lead-up to tomorrow’s big event. Over the past two weeks, I’ve recorded a special edisode of Equity with Alex about the overall state of the industry, we’ve done a pair of TechCrunch Lives with Rapid Robotics and Attabotics (plus investors Bee Partners and Forerunner Ventures) and I hosted two Twitter Spaces with Ayanna Howard/Ayah Bdeir and Colin Angle.

Those last few are going to be available soon as TechCrunch Live podcasts, but in the meantime, I’m going to be turning over the intro to this newsletter to some of the more interesting insights from the pair of Twitter Spaces, then on to what’s…

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