Massive Outage Dents Facebook Shares, Revenue

Facebook took a hit to its share price and advertising revenue on Monday as a massive outage shut down the social media platform for about six hours.The Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp apps went dark around noon Eastern Daylight Time, in what website monitoring group Downdetector said was the l...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 5, 2021

IMF Warns of Crypto Risks to Financial Stability

The International Monetary Fund has joined the chorus of concern over crypto assets, warning that their rapid growth and increasing adoption are a threat to financial stability.At a global level, “financial stability risks appear contained for now,” but with “limited or inadequate disclosure and ...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 1, 2021

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The CFO Strategy for Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence’s impact on the office of the CFO continues to evolve, and finance chiefs must be aware of the opportunities it will create for growth. 

By CFO.com staff

U.S. Slaps Crypto Exchange With Sanctions

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday took the unprecedented step of sanctioning a cryptocurrency exchange, alleging Suex OTX helped launder money for ransomware attackers.According to Treasury, Suex facilitated transactions involving illicit proceeds from at least eight ransomware variants and...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 21, 2021

Data of 47 Microsoft Customers Exposed to Web

At least 47 organizations inadvertently exposed millions of people’s personal information to the public internet for months by misconfiguring Microsoft software, according to cybersecurity firm UpGuard.The data leak affected American Airlines, Maryland’s health department, and New York’s Metropol...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 25, 2021

T-Mobile Confirms Hackers Accessed ‘Some Data’

T-Mobile has confirmed that hackers broke into its internal servers in what could be one of the largest carrier data breaches ever.A day after Vice reported hackers were claiming to have stolen the personal data of 100 million T-Mobile USA customers, the company said Monday that “unauthorized acc...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 17, 2021

Nikola Wins Research Grant From DOE

Scandal-plagued electric truck maker Nikola announced Thursday that it won a $2 million grant from the U.S. Energy Department to develop hydrogen refueling technologies.The grant was formally awarded July 7 — three weeks before Nikola founder Trevor Milton was indicted on three counts of criminal...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 13, 2021

Crypto Hacker Returns Half of Stolen Assets

In a case of crypto crime apparently not paying, a hacker who stole some $600 million in digital assets from decentralized finance platform Poly Network has begun to return the ill-gotten gains.Poly Network disclosed Tuesday it was the target of one of the largest ever cryptocurrency heists and t...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 12, 2021

Hackers in Ransomware Attack Demand $70M

The group of Russian hackers who have claimed responsibility for what is being called the biggest ransomware attack ever have demanded $70 million to unlock computers affected by the breach.The REvil group made the demand late Sunday, offering in a posting on its dark web site a universal decrypt...

By Matthew Heller • July 6, 2021

Sunburst Hack Costs SolarWinds At Least $18M

SolarWinds disclosed Tuesday that it took a hit of at least $18 million from the massive Russian malware attack that compromised its flagship Orion technology management software. In releasing preliminary first-quarter results, SolarWinds said it spent $18 million to $19 million to “investigate a...

By Matthew Heller • April 14, 2021

Russia Hack Targeted Specific Microsoft Customers

The massive Russian malware attack targeted more than 40 Microsoft customers with “narrower and more focused” measures, the company said, calling it “a broad and successful espionage-based assault.”Investigators have traced the hack to updates of the Orion technology management software that were...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 18, 2020

Twitter to Shut Down Periscope Five Years After Launch

Twitter is shutting down Periscope as a separate live video streaming app after incorporating most of its core capabilities into the Twitter Live feature within the main app.Twitter said in a blog post Tuesday that it made the “difficult decision” to discontinue Periscope by March 2021 in part be...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 16, 2020

Hack of U.S. Agencies Tied to Software Updates

Hackers who breached the computer systems of U.S. government agencies including the Treasury Department appear to have hidden malicious code in the body of legitimate software updates, according to cybersecurity experts.Investigators have traced the hack — which one U.S. official said is “probabl...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 15, 2020

Nation-State Hackers Breach Cybersecurity Firm

Sophisticated hackers have turned the tables on FireEye, one of the world’s premier cybersecurity firms, stealing digital tools that it uses to test its customers’ cyber defenses.The New York Times said the “stunning theft,” which FireEye disclosed on Tuesday, was “akin to bank robbers who, havin...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 9, 2020

Cloud Security: A Work In Progress

Mountain View, Calif.-based Egnyte provides file sharing via the cloud to its customers, so its security practices have to be top-notch. But the company also has all of its internal finance applications in the cloud, including those handling employee expenses and payment processing for contractor...

By Bob Violino • Oct. 13, 2020

Ransomware Hackers Hit UHS Hospital Chain

A suspected ransomware attack shut down the computer systems at Universal Health Services, one of the largest U.S. hospital chains, and raised fears that the hackers gained access to patient and employee data.As Wired reports, “Ransomware attacks on large organizations have been prevalent since t...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 29, 2020

Chinese Nationals Charged With Hacking Attacks

U.S. authorities announced that five Chinese nationals linked to a China-backed hacking group have been charged with breaking into the computer systems of more than 100 companies in the U.S. and abroad.Two of the five alleged hackers — Zhang Haoran, 35, and Tan Dailin, 35 — were indicted by a gra...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 17, 2020

Trump Orders TikTok Owner to Sell U.S. Assets

President Donald Trump has made another move against TikTok, giving the Chinese owner of the video-sharing app until Nov. 12 to divest its U.S. operations.In an order issued on Friday, the president cited “credible evidence” that Bytedance “might take action that threatens the national security o...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 17, 2020

Major Twitter Accounts Hacked for Bitcoin Scam

Twitter temporarily disabled broad swaths of its service on Wednesday after suffering an unprecedented hack that used high-profile accounts to spread a cryptocurrency scam.The accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates were among those targeted by what Twitter...

By Matthew Heller • July 16, 2020

Microsoft Scraps Game Streaming Platform

Microsoft is shutting down its Mixer live-streaming gaming platform after struggling to compete with rivals such as Amazon’s Twitch and YouTube Gaming.Microsoft bet heavily on Mixer after acquiring the service, then known as Beam, in 2016, making exclusive deals with content creators such as Ninj...

By Matthew Heller • June 23, 2020

Smartphone Market Seen Falling 11.9% in 2020

The global smartphone market will decline sharply this year due to the macroeconomic impact of the coronavirus pandemic though sales of new 5G phones may spark a rebound toward the end of 2020, according to International Data Corp.The research group said Wednesday it expects smartphone shipments ...

By Matthew Heller • June 3, 2020

Facebook Zooms in on Videoconferencing

Facebook is moving into the videoconferencing market, offering another option for locked-down consumers who have sparked a surge in demand for video chats.Facebook’s new Messenger Rooms tool is similar to Zoom and Houseparty, which have seen usage take off since the coronavirus pandemic forced pe...

By Matthew Heller • April 27, 2020

Apple, Google Add Tech Muscle to Virus Fight

The coronavirus pandemic has inspired a rare collaboration between Apple and Google to add technology to their smartphones that will alert users if they have been in contact with an infected person.The two tech giants said they will initially release application programming interfaces (APIs) in M...

By Matthew Heller • April 13, 2020

Digital Transformation: Obsolete Concept or Rare Feat?

Does the phrase “digital transformation” mean anything anymore? If it ever did, it probably doesn’t now. If every company is digitally transforming, saying that a company is undergoing digital transformation doesn’t impart information.“It’s basically lost its luster,” acknowledges David Clarke, g...

By David McCann • Feb. 20, 2020

U.S. Facing Threats to AI Tech Leadership

The U.S. will need to step up investment and reduce immigration barriers if it is to maintain its lead in developing AI and machine learning technologies, according to two MIT researchers.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee noted how the...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 23, 2020

Can Companies Come to Grips With AI Hype?

Companies are using more artificial intelligence and starting to realize some quantifiable benefits. At the same time, the wild proliferation of technology firms claiming to offer AI tools is hindering companies’ efforts to attain game-changing ROI.That’s one conclusion of a new KPMG study of 751...

By David McCann • Jan. 17, 2020