Daily Crunch - Tesla targeted in ransomware attack

Friday, August 28, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

The Justice Department reveals a thwarted malware attack on Tesla, Facebook tests linking your news subscriptions to your social network account and Xiaomi has plans for under-screen cameras. This is your Daily Crunch for August 28, 2020.

The big story: Tesla targeted in ransomware attack

The Justice Department released a complaint Thursday describing a thwarted malware attack against an unidentified company in Sparks, Nevada, where Tesla has a factory. And Elon Musk confirmed in a tweet that Tesla was the target: “This was a serious attack.”

In the complaint, the Justice Department alleged that Russian national Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov attempted to recruit and bribe a Tesla employee to introduce malware in the company’s network — specifically ransomware, which encrypts a victim’s files and, in this case, would also have exfiltrated the data to the hacker’s servers.

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Facebook tests linking your FB account to your news subscriptions — Once you’re linked, if you encounter a paywalled article on Facebook, you’ll be able to read it without hitting the paywall or having to log in again.

Xiaomi plans to bring under-screen cameras to its smartphones next year — The company says it’s been able to effectively double the pixel density of competing technology, letting light through to the camera without sacrificing the uniformity of the screen.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Startups, funding and venture capital

Railsbank is buying Wirecard Card Solutions, the UK arm of the disgraced fintech — Wirecard collapsed into insolvency earlier this year after facing a huge accounting scandal and subsequently failing to make payments on $1.5 billion in loans.

Steno raises $3.5 million led by First Round to become an extension of law offices — Steno’s first offering lines up court reporters and pays them, removing both potential headaches from lawyers’ to-do lists.

Femtech poised for growth beyond fertility — That’s according to an analyst note from PitchBook, which identifies opportunities for entrepreneurs in broadening out from a traditional focus on reproductive health.

Startups, funding and venture capital image

Image Credits: Towfiqu Photography / Getty Images

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

SaaS stocks survive earnings, keeping the market warm for software startups, exits — We’re on the other end of nearly every single SaaS earnings report that you can name (with the exception of Slack).

Podcast is social: How China’s Lizhi makes audio interactive — “I learned from my days working in radio that interaction is the best monetization model in the audio business,” founder Marco Lai told us.

What does GPT-3 mean for the future of the legal profession? — Rudy DeFelice of Keesal Propulsion Labs argues that GPT-3 might be a game changer in legal and other knowledge-focused organizations.

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