Sunday☕️

Time Is Money

Jun 30, 2024 • 6 min read

Trending:

TeamViewer Hack
Coinbase Partners With Stripe

Week Recap:

The U.S. subsidiary of Spain-based bank Santander is notifying over 12,000 employees that their personal information was compromised in a third-party data breach. The incident was discovered on May 10 and involved a database used by a third-party affiliate from late April to early May 2024. In a notification letter sent to the affected employees, Santander Holdings USA explained that hackers accessed records containing employee names, Social Security numbers, and bank account information used for payroll.
OpenAI has announced its acquisition of Rockset, a real-time analytics database known for its advanced data indexing and querying capabilities. This move aims to transform how people and organizations leverage their data by integrating Rockset’s technology into OpenAI’s suite of AI products. Rockset enables users, developers, and enterprises to access real-time information and make better use of their data, facilitating the development of more intelligent applications.
The Federal Reserve Board's annual bank stress test revealed that large banks would face greater losses than last year's test, but they are still well positioned to endure a severe recession and maintain capital above minimum requirements. This year's stress test results indicate that while banks' balance sheets are somewhat riskier and expenses are higher, they have enough capital to absorb losses in a highly stressful scenario.
On Tuesday, at 5:26 p.m. est, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launched the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-U mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission is designed to place the GOES-U satellite into a geostationary orbit approximately 35,700 km (22,236 mi) above the Earth's equator.
NASA has awarded an $843 million contract to SpaceX to build the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, which will guide the International Space Station (ISS) to its destruction after its planned retirement in 2030. This spacecraft will be responsible for safely deorbiting the ISS, ensuring it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere in a controlled manner to minimize risks to populated areas.
On June 27, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces intercepted and destroyed an uncrewed aerial system (UAS) launched by Iranian-backed Houthis into the Red Sea. This UAS posed an imminent threat to U.S. and coalition forces, as well as merchant vessels. On June 26, CENTCOM forces targeted and destroyed a Houthi radar site in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. This radar site was identified as a threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels. The destruction of this site was part of efforts to safeguard international waters and protect maritime traffic.
Amazon is preparing to launch a new section on its website dedicated to low-priced fashion and lifestyle items, enabling Chinese sellers to ship directly to U.S. consumers. This new storefront, revealed at an exclusive conference for Chinese sellers on Wednesday, marks Amazon's most aggressive effort yet to counter growing competition from e-commerce newcomers Temu and Shein, which are linked to China, the world's second-largest economy.
Korean news organization JTBC recently discovered that KT Corporation, a major telecom provider in South Korea, deliberately infected over 600,000 users with malware because they were using torrent services. Torrent services, use a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol called BitTorrent. This allows users to download pieces of a file from multiple sources, speeding up the process and reducing the load on any single server. The issue began in May 2020 when Webhard started receiving numerous complaints about unexplained errors. They found that their Grid Program, which uses BitTorrent, had been compromised, and further investigation revealed that only users with KT as their internet provider were affected.

Coinbase Partners With Stripe:

Coinbase and Stripe have announced a strategic partnership aimed at revolutionizing the cryptocurrency and financial technology sectors. This collaboration is set to enhance onchain adoption and provide a more efficient, cost-effective financial infrastructure for users worldwide.
As part of this partnership, Stripe will integrate USDC on Base into its crypto payouts product. This move will allow platforms using Stripe to conduct faster and cheaper money transfers to over 150 countries. The integration leverages Base's secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly transaction infrastructure, which has quickly become a preferred solution in the industry. In addition, Stripe is adding USDC on Base to its fiat-to-crypto onramp. This feature will enable U.S. customers to convert fiat currency to cryptocurrency more quickly and efficiently than ever before.
By simplifying the process of purchasing crypto, Stripe aims to make digital currencies more accessible to a wider audience. Furthermore, Coinbase will incorporate Stripe’s fiat-to-crypto onramp into Coinbase Wallet. This integration will allow users to buy cryptocurrency instantly using credit cards and Apple Pay, offering a seamless and convenient experience for acquiring digital assets.
These three key integrations are designed to capitalize on the strengths of both companies, providing faster and cheaper money transfers, improving the fiat-to-crypto conversion process, and enhancing the user experience for purchasing cryptocurrency. By supporting Base, Stripe’s extensive network of users will benefit from the platform’s secure and efficient transaction capabilities, further solidifying the role of cryptocurrency in the future of global finance.

TeamViewer Hack

A Russian hacking group, Cozy Bear (also known as Midnight Blizzard), has breached the corporate IT environment of TeamViewer, a popular remote access software, though no customer data appears to have been affected. TeamViewer publicly disclosed the breach on Thursday, noting that the attack was confined to its corporate IT environment, which is kept separate from the production environment that houses the actual TeamViewer product. This segregation of environments is intended to prevent unauthorized access and lateral movement between different areas.
Despite the breach, TeamViewer has found no evidence that the hackers accessed their product environment or customer data. However, it remains unclear what the Russian hackers may have accessed or stolen from the company’s corporate IT environment, which likely contains valuable information about TeamViewer’s processes and security. The intrusion was detected on Wednesday, and initial investigations indicate that the hackers gained access using the login credentials of a TeamViewer employee. Suspicious behavior from this account prompted immediate incident response measures.
The breach was initially reported by the third-party security company NCC Group, which received intelligence suggesting Midnight Blizzard had infiltrated TeamViewer. Given Cozy Bear’s affiliation with the Kremlin and their recent hacking of Microsoft’s corporate email accounts, NCC Group advised customers to consider removing TeamViewer from their systems or to place hosts with the software under heightened monitoring to mitigate potential risks.

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