Staff Writer - itbusinessdirect

ICANN Hacked! Resets encrypted passwords after user profile database breach

August 6, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

The overseer of the Internet’s addressing system said Wednesday that someone obtained information related to user accounts for its public website, although no financial information was divulged. ICANN, short for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said user names, email addresses, encrypted passwords and other data, such as bios, interests and newsletter subscriptions, were contained in the accounts. Despite the breach, the accounts as well as internal ICANN systems do not appear to have been accessed, the organization said in a post on its website. Although an investigation…

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U.S. Senators introduce DHS Cybersecurity Bill to Protect ‘Dot-Gov’ Domain after breach

July 24, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation on Wednesday to give the Department of Homeland Security more authority to protect government Internet addresses in Cybersecurity bid. The goal is to prevent more cyberattacks like recent massive breaches at the government’s hiring office. Hacks targeting the Office of Personnel Management put the personal data of some 22 million Americans at risk and prompted the resignation of OPM chief Katherine Archuleta earlier this month. The cyberattacks prompted calls in Congress for huge improvements in monitoring and protection of government systems. Reports…

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Data Breaches: First half of 2015 saw venture firms invest $1.2 billion in cybersecurity startups

July 17, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

Data Breaches Boost Funding for Cybersecurity Startups Extract: In the 2015 first half, venture firms invested $1.2 billion in cybersecurity startups, according to researcher CB Insights. That is down slightly from $1.4 billion a year earlier but up sharply from $771 million in 2013’s first half. The shift is particularly notable at Andreessen Horowitz, which used to view security companies as necessary for Internet safety but less lucrative than other technology niches. One reason is that cybersecurity startups were often acquired prior to an initial public offering, says Scott Weiss,…

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Twitter Shares Rise After Faked Bloomberg Report

July 15, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

Takeover rumors about Twitter surface with seeming regularity every couple of months. But one on Tuesday showed a new level of sophistication in an effort to pump up the company’s stock. Shares of Twitter, the social network, briefly spiked after an article that appeared to come from the Bloomberg News website contended that the company had received a takeover offer worth $31 billion. Analysts and Twitter users quickly started poking holes in the online piece and deemed it a fake. (No such report ran on the Bloomberg terminal, where its…

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Women Entrepreneurs Are Key to Accelerating Growth

July 14, 2015May 16, 2016 Staff Writer

Latest Kauffman Policy Digest explores barriers to women entrepreneurs and offers five policy recommendations to address the gender gap (KANSAS CITY, Mo.) July 20, 2015 – While the number of women entering the workforce has significantly increased over several decades, they are still half as likely as men to start a business. According to the most recent Entrepreneurship Policy Digest released today by the Kauffman Foundation, the lack of women entrepreneurs is not just a gender issue, it’s an economic issue. The Policy Digest highlights the skillsets of women that…

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Ethiopian Entrepreneur Sophia Bekele spoke on #GES Panel in San Francisco

July 13, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

DotConnectAfrica speaks at #GES-Global Entrepreneurship Summit #AfricanEntrepreneurs #SiliconValley

Sophia Bekele, Founder/ CEO DotConnectAfrica, Yes2dotAfrica was invited to speak on Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) forum, hosted by the White House and USAID on “African Entrepreneurs & Silicon Valley Forum: Bridging Gaps and Making Connections” The forum held at the Silicon Valley Bank’s WeWork Golden Gate location, San Francisco, California, and hosted over 100 delegates comprised of VCs, impact investors, African diaspora entrepreneurs, tech leaders, policymakers and U.S. government members from Washington DC and San Francisco, focused on spurring and supporting innovation ecosystems and investment in Africa. Various high-level panel…

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Microsoft admits Nokia acquisition was a bad deal

July 9, 2015February 17, 2016 Staff Writer

Barely a year after Microsoft paid $9.5 billion for Nokia’s handset unit, the company says it has lost $7.6 billion of that value. That’s equal to about 95 percent of what Microsoft paid for the assets, excluding the cash that came with them. Along with a hefty writedown, Microsoft plans to cut as many as 7,800 jobs, many of them related to the purchase of the Finnish mobile phone maker. Reports Bloomberg “I am committed to our first-party devices including phones,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s current CEO, wrote in an email to employees about the moves.…

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Drill-Down Report Finds Global Financial Services Businesses 300% More Susceptible To Cybercrime

June 24, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

Global financial services businesses encounter security incidents 300% more frequently than other industries, according to a report released on Tuesday by Raytheon | Websense, a company that helps protect organizations from cyber attacks and data theft. The 2015 Financial Services Drill-Down Report found “a high degree of specialization among criminals attacking financial services, a huge investment in the lure attack phase and the specific and anomalous Cybercrime attacks pointed at global targets dealing in finance.” “For years, this industry has been under attack by highly specialized groups of criminals,” said…

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