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TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

mybb@mybb.ru (admin) — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 15:03:32 +0300

ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the smash-hit video app TikTok, saw its earnings double last year.
An internal memo released to staff showed that the firm's total revenue jumped by 111% to $34.3bn (£24.7bn) for 2020.

The figures underscore TikTok's continued global popularity.

It comes as ByteDance and several other Chinese technology giants have come under increasing pressure from governments around the world.

ByteDance also saw its annual gross profit rise by 93% to to $19bn, while it recorded a net loss of $45bn for the same period.

The net loss was attributed to a one-off accounting adjustment and not related to the company's operations.

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The memo also showed that ByteDance had around 1.9bn monthly active users across all of its platforms as of December last year.

A ByteDance spokesperson confirmed the figures to the BBC.

White House pressure
The massive popularity of TikTok has meant that ByteDance has been scrutinised by governments around the world, including in the US and China.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that an executive order signed by President Joe Biden earlier this month would force some Chinese apps to take tougher measures to protect user data if they wanted to stay in the US market.

It came after President Biden revoked an executive order from his predecessor Donald Trump that banned Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat in the US.

The ban faced a series of legal challenges and never came into force.

Instead, the US Department of Commerce said it would review apps designed and developed by those in "the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary", such as China.

It should use an "evidence-based approach" to see if they pose a risk to US national security, President Biden said.

During the previous administration, President Trump regularly attacked ByteDance, accusing TikTok of being a threat to US national security.

Politicians and officials raised concerns about users' personal data being passed to the Chinese government.

TikTok has denied accusations that it shared user data with Beijing.

Beijing scrutiny
In April, Chinese regulators called on 13 online platforms, including ByteDance, to adhere to tighter regulations in their financial divisions.

It came as part of a wider push to rein in the country's technology giants.

The authorities said the aim was to prevent monopolistic behaviour and the "disorderly expansion of capital".

For many years, Beijing had taken a hands off approach to encourage the technology industry to grow.

Why is ransomware so dangerous and difficult to stop?

mybb@mybb.ru (admin) — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 15:02:54 +0300

Recent high-profile "ransomware" attacks on the world's largest meat-packing company and Ireland's national health service have underscored how gangs of extortionist hackers can disrupt the economy and put lives and livelihoods at risk.

Last year alone in the United States, ransomware gangs hit more than 100 federal, state and municipal agencies, upwards of 500 health care centers, 1,680 educational institutions and untold thousands of businesses, according to the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. Dollar losses are in the tens of billions. Accurate numbers are elusive. Many victims shun reporting, fearing the reputational blight.

In Europe, ransomware attacks have struck targets as diverse as Polish game developer CD Projekt and schools in Tunbridge Wells, England. But it is the disruptive hacks on the Colonial Pipeline in the US and Brazilian meat processor JBS in May that have drawn close attention from world leaders, along with heightened scrutiny of the foreign safe havens where cybercriminal mafias operate.

By Euronews with Associated Press � Updated: 17/06/2021
Recent high-profile "ransomware" attacks on the world's largest meat-packing company and Ireland's national health service have underscored how gangs of extortionist hackers can disrupt the economy and put lives and livelihoods at risk.

What is ransomware and how does it work?
Ransomware scrambles the target organisation's data with encryption. The criminals leave instructions on infected computers for negotiating ransom payments. Once paid, they provide decryption keys for unlocking those files.

Ransomware crooks have also expanded into data-theft blackmail. Before triggering encryption, they quietly copy sensitive files and threaten to post them publicly unless they get their ransom payments. That can present problems even for companies that diligently back up their networks as a hedge against ransomware, since refusing to pay can incur costs far greater than the ransoms they might have negotiated.

How do ransomware gangs operate?
The criminal syndicates that dominate the ransomware business are mostly Russian-speaking and operate with near impunity out of Russia and allied countries. Though barely a blip three years ago, the syndicates have grown in sophistication and skill. They leverage dark web forums to organise and recruit while hiding their identities and movements with sophisticated tools and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin that make payments - and their laundering - harder to track.

Some top ransomware criminals fancy themselves software service professionals. They take pride in their "customer service," providing "help desks" that assist paying victims in file decryption. And they tend to keep their word. They have brands to protect, after all.

The business is now highly specialised. An affiliate will identify, map out and infect targets using ransomware that is typically "rented" from a ransomware-as-a-service provider. The provider gets a cut of the payout; the affiliate normally takes more than three-quarters.

Other subcontractors may also get a slice. Those can include the authors of the malware used to break into victim networks and the people running so-called "bulletproof domains" behind which the ransomware gangs hide their "command-and-control" servers. Those servers manage the remote sowing of malware and data extraction ahead of activation, a stealthy process that can take weeks.

How come the ransoms keep getting bigger?
Data from EU cybersecurity agency Enisa published in October showed that victims of ransomware paid out over �10 billion in 2019, up �3.3 billion on the year before.

Meat company JBS admitted in June it had paid the equivalent of �9 million to hackers after a ransomware attack halted production in Australia and America.

"This was a very difficult decision to make for our company and for me personally," said Andre Nogueira, the CEO of JBS USA. "However, we felt this decision had to be made to prevent any potential risk for our customers".

The FBI discourages paying ransoms, but a public-private task force including tech companies and US, British and Canadian crime agencies says it would be wrong to try to ban ransom payments altogether. That's largely because "ransomware attackers continue to find sectors and elements of society that are woefully underprepared for this style of attack."

The task force recognises that paying up can be the only way for an afflicted business to avoid bankruptcy. Worse, the sophisticated cybercriminals often have done their research and know a victim's cybersecurity insurance coverage limit. They've been known to mention it in negotiations.

That degree of criminal savvy helped drive average ransom payments to more than $310,000 (�260,000) last year, up 171 per cent from 2019, according to Palo Alto Networks, a task force member.

What are leaders doing to tackle ransomware?
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order in May meant to strengthen American cybersecurity defences, mostly in response to Russia's hacking of federal agencies and interference in US politics.

White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in June that the ransom demand of JBS meat came from a "criminal organisation likely based in Russia."

Ransomware and cybersecurity were key discussion points when President Biden met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Geneva in June.

"I talked about the proposition that certain critical infrastructure should be off limits to attack. Period. By cyber or any other means. I gave them a list, 16 specific entities. 16 defined as critical infrastructure," Biden said after the summit.

Earlier, leaders at a G7 summit in the United Kingdom issued a joint statement that called on Russia to do more to tackle cybercrime.

"We call on Russia...to identify, disrupt, and hold to account those within its borders who conduct ransomware attacks, abuse virtual currency to launder ransoms, and other cybercrimes," the statement signed by the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States said.

The new industry task force set up to combat ransomware says it's important to have concerted diplomatic, legal and law enforcement cooperation with key allies.

Ransomware developers and their affiliates should be named and shamed - though they're not always easy to identify - and regimes that enable them punished with sanctions, its report urges.

It calls for mandatory disclosure of ransom payments and a federal "response fund" to provide financial assistance to victims in hopes that, in many cases, it will prevent them from paying ransoms.

And it wants stricter regulation of cryptocurrency markets to make it more difficult for criminals to launder ransomware proceeds.

The task force also calls for something potentially controversial: amending the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to let private industry actively block or limit online criminal activity, including of botnets, the networks of hijacked zombie computers that ransomware criminals use to sow infections.

Ferrari picks tech CEO Benedetto Vigna to lead its transition to elect

mybb@mybb.ru (admin) — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 15:01:18 +0300

Ferrari has picked a tech executive to steer the luxury carmaker towards an electric future, appointing 52-year-old Benedetto Vigna as its new boss.

Ferrari, which already offers hybrid models, has plans to release its first fully electric car in 2025.

Italian national Vigna currently heads the biggest division of French-Italian chip maker STMicrolectronics.

His appointment fills a six-month vacancy at the helm of the luxury carmaker, following the sudden retirement of former Chief Executive Louis Camilleri in December.

Chairman John Elkann, scion of the Agnelli family which controls Ferrari through its investing firm Exor, said the company was "delighted" to welcome Vigna as its new CEO.

Vigna has 'all the right qualities'
"His deep understanding of the technologies driving much of the change in our industry, and his proven innovation, business-building and leadership skills, will further strengthen Ferrari and its unique story of passion and performance, in the exciting era ahead," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

Elkann has led the company on an interim basis since Camilleri stepped down.

In April, he said Ferrari's new CEO should have "all the right qualities, including importantly the technological capabilities," playing down initial speculation that the new boss could have a background in luxury or retail.

Vigna will start at Ferrari on September 1, the company said.

He is currently president of STM's largest and most profitable arm, the analogue, micro-electromechanical systems and sensors group.

Vigna, who is also a member of the STMicroelectronics executive committee, will leave the company on August 31, the Franco-Italian chipmaker said in a separate statement.