Daily Crunch - Twitter hacked in crypto scam

Thursday, July 16, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

A Twitter hack hits the platform’s most famous users, Netflix gets a co-CEO and Revel’s mopeds are coming to San Francisco. Here’s your Daily Crunch for July 16, 2020.

The big story: High-profile Twitter accounts hacked in crypto scam

This was a crazy one: The Twitter accounts of Apple, Elon Musk, Joe Biden and many, many others were compromised yesterday, posting messages with the address of a bitcoin wallet, promising that any payments would be doubled and sent back.

Apparently a hacker used an internal Twitter administrative tool to gain access to all of these accounts. The company described this as “a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”

Not surprisingly, Twitter’s stock took a hit, and the company will probably be dealing with the fallout for weeks or months to come. (One of the initial responses involved locking accounts that recently changed their passwords.)

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Ted Sarandos named co-CEO at Netflix — The announcement comes as the company added more than 10 million new subscribers in its most recent quarter.

Instagram launches its redesigned Shop, now powered by Facebook Pay — Instagram Shop is a way to buy products from brands and creators, as well as curated collections from the company’s @shop account, all within the Explore section.

Uber acquires Routematch as it drives deeper into public transit in hunt for SaaS revenue — Routematch, which provides software to transit agencies, will continue operations with CEO Pepper Harward at the helm.

Image Credits: Amanda Edwards / Getty Images

Startups, funding and venture capital

Revel lands permit to bring hundreds of electric mopeds to San Francisco — I’ve been seeing Revel’s mopeds all over New York City, and now they’ve got approval to launch in SF.

Activ Surgical raises $15 million to advance autonomous and collaborative robotic surgery — The startup equips surgical equipment with sensors, with the data used to guide surgeons and surgical systems.

Monzo launches new Monzo Plus with software features it hopes users will want to pay for — The new features include third-party bank account aggregation, virtual debit cards, custom transaction categories, spreadsheet export and credit score updates.

Startups, funding and venture capital image

Image Credits: Revel

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Why certain VC investors earn great ‘Founder NPS’ scores — Danny Crichton read more than 1,200 founder recommendations for VCs while preparing The TechCrunch List. In this post, he shares some of the common themes.

8 edtech investors talk re-skilling, digital universities, ISAs and other post-pandemic trends — We’ve talked to investors about how COVID-19 has reshaped edtech and education, but what happens after the pandemic?

VC Josh Stein talks power dynamics: ‘I don’t think this has been a mustache-twisting moment for investors’ — Hot startup founders may not have quite as much leverage as they did before the pandemic — but Threshold Ventures’ Stein said he isn’t trying to rub it in.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch image

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Everything else

Game developer poll suggests longer hours and less productivity as the industry adapts to remote work — Among developers surveyed by GDC, 32% found themselves being less productive, in spite of working longer hours.

VPN providers rethink Hong Kong servers after China’s security law — Hong Kong may lose its status as a haven for data centers.

Europe’s top court strikes down flagship EU-US data transfer mechanism — The decision has implications for U.S. agencies interested in digital surveillance, as well as internet companies like Facebook.