Last fall, on the eve of the elections, the U.S. Department of Defense tried to throttle a transnational cybercrime group. But the hackers have rebuilt much of their operations. It’s become clear in recent months that the gang is very much alive and well. READ MORE
Microsoft to acquire cybersecurity firm RiskIQ as cyber threats mount
Microsoft on Monday announced that it's buying cybersecurity firm RiskIQ to help companies better protect themselves as ransomware and other cyber attacks become increasingly disruptive.
Microsoft (MSFT) said the acquisition will help its customers address the unique risks created by remote work and relying on cloud computing amid "the increasing sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks." READ MORE
Broadcom in talks to buy software firm SAS
Broadcom Inc. is in talks to buy SAS Institute Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, in the latest move by the acquisitive technology giant to beef up in enterprise software.
A deal, which would value closely held SAS in the range of $15 billion to $20 billion, could be finalized in the coming weeks assuming the talks don’t fall apart, the people said. That number is so-called enterprise value, some of the people said, which typically includes assumed debt and is adjusted for cash on the target’s balance sheet. READ MORE
GM drops another feature from its full-size trucks due to chip shortage
The semiconductor shortage keeps chipping away at the features available on GM's big truck.
General Motors has been prioritizing production of its popular and profitable full-size pickups and SUVs as it works to manage supplies of the key components. READ MORE
Barry Diller declares the movie industry dead, 'will never come back'
The coronavirus pandemic shut down movie theaters worldwide and there has been much debate about whether the industry will come back from its 15-month hibernation, but IAC Chairman Barry Diller seemed to lay the argument to rest Friday, telling NPR that the business as he knows it is dead.
"The movie business is over," Diller told the news outlet at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Idaho. "The movie business as before is finished and will never come back." READ MORE
United Airlines CEO says travel won't fully recover until 2023 as business demand lags
Travel isn’t likely to recover in full from the challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic until 2023 as business demand continues to lag, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said Sunday.
Kirby addressed the state of travel on CBS’ "Face the Nation," saying that while the pent-up leisure demand has exceeded 100 percent, business demand is still off by about 60 percent as some borders around the world remain closed. READ MORE
Jobs are hard to fill, and ideology makes it hard to understand why
Telling one story about why employers are struggling to hire workers doesn’t come close to explaining what is going on with the job market.
Economists expect Friday’s employment report to show that the economy added 706,000 jobs in June, a step up from May’s 559,000 and what would in normal times be a big number. These aren’t normal times, though. The U.S. is still 7.6 million jobs short of what it had before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, and earlier this year there were hopes that, as more Americans got vaccinated, the job market would be closing that gap far more quickly than it has. READ MORE
Cash-laden companies are on a mergers and acquisitions spree
Businesses spent $1.74 trillion on mergers and acquisitions involving U.S. companies during the first six months of the year—the highest amount in more than four decades—as finance chiefs tapped into cheap funding options to acquire technologies, services and other assets.
Such transactions surged in value in the first six months of the year, up from $511.79 billion during the year-ago period and $1.28 trillion in the first six months of 2019, before the pandemic, according to data provider Refinitiv, which began tracking deals in 1980. The total number of deals with U.S. involvement, at 9,725, also was higher than in comparable periods in 2020 and 2019, Refinitiv said. READ MORE
More jobless Americans are suing states for ending federal unemployment benefits early
Out-of-work Americans in Indiana, Texas and Maryland have filed lawsuits against their respective states seeking to reinstate a pandemic relief program that paid out an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits.
The three states are among the 26 states – nearly all of which are led by Republican governors – that decided last month to prematurely end one of three federal unemployment programs that provided out-of-work Americans with an extra $300 a week, on top of their regular state benefits, and extended eligibility for contract workers as well as those who had exhausted their regular state benefits. READ MORE
FTC charges Broadcom with monopolizing chip industry
The Federal Trade Commission said Friday it has sued and settled with the technology giant Broadcom over allegations that the company sought to monopolize the supply of semiconductor chips.
According to the complaint, Broadcom (AVGO) entered into exclusive anti-competitive deals with its business customers — including television and internet service providers such as Charter, Comcast and Verizon — that forbade them from purchasing chips from other vendors. (The ISPs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) Broadcom also allegedly sought to link sales of its chips with other related products such as WiFi and signal converter chips, requiring customers to purchase both. READ MORE
Ford idling 8 factories for weeks in July and August due to semiconductor shortage
Ford is suspending production at eight North American factories for various periods of time in July and August due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage, including one that builds its best-selling F-150 pickup.
"While we continue to manufacture new vehicles, we're prioritizing completing our customers' vehicles that were assembled without certain parts due to the industry-wide semiconductor shortage," the automaker said in a statement provided to Reuters. READ MORE
Whose rocket is bigger? How Musk, Branson and Bezos’ space stuff stacks up
After Jeff Bezos announced that he would fly into suborbit with his brother, the winner of an auctioned seat and another crew member on July 20, Richard Branson countered with a flight plan of his own for early July.
Both billionaires are jumping into the space tourism market, having invested in the space industry for about two decades. READ MORE
Flying car completes test flight between airports
The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel.
Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked up 40 hours in the air so far.
It takes two minutes and 15 seconds to transform from car into aircraft. READ MORE
What America's Startup Boom Could Mean For The Economy
Back in November, the Planet Money newsletter reported that — despite a deadly pandemic and an ugly recession — America was seeing a boom in the creation of new startups. We spoke with University of Maryland economist John Haltiwanger, one of the leading scholars of business formation. Now Haltiwanger has a new study out, and the trend is clear: "The surge continues," Haltiwanger says. "We're now convinced this wasn't just a blip." READ MORE
A credit card giant says no one should work from the office five days a week
Some companies can't wait to get to get their employees back to the office full-time. Synchrony Financial is not one of them.
Synchrony (SYF), America's largest store credit card company, is not allowing employees to return to the office five days a week even as the pandemic winds down. READ MORE
What the Modern Buyer Wants in 2021
B2B tech sales in 2021 has seen some big changes. The biggest by far? The emergence of buyers in the sales process.
The days of tech sales teams controlling the entry points to the sales funnel are over. The days of sales teams leading potential customers through their own process regardless of customer desires are over. READ MORE
Millions of jobs and a shortage of applicants. Welcome to the new economy
There's a problem at James Hook's chicken farms, and it has nothing to do with poultry.
P.D. Hook, a hatchery that supplies one third of the chickens sold in the United Kingdom, should be humming along as the economy roars back to life. But the company is short about 40 farm workers, double the usual number of vacancies. READ MORE
Wall Street dealmakers have never been busier
There's never been a better time for companies to raise funding from hot markets or make moves to scoop up their competitors.
That's been a huge boon to investment bankers, who are gearing up for another summer of juggling dealmaking with vacations. READ MORE
This Wall Street bank is bucking the back to office trend
The era of virtual work isn't ending at UBS.
The Swiss bank will allow up to two-thirds of its employees around the world to permanently adopt a hybrid schedule that includes a mix of working from home and from the office, a person familiar with the matter told CNN Business. READ MORE
Fired by Bot at Amazon: ‘It’s You Against the Machine’
Stephen Normandin spent almost four years racing around Phoenix delivering packages as a contract driver for Amazon.com Inc. Then one day, he received an automated email. The algorithms tracking him had decided he wasn’t doing his job properly. The 63-year-old Army veteran was stunned. He’d been fired by a machine. READ MORE