Duncan Riley
Latest from Duncan Riley
Alleged Chinese cryptocurrency scam may have driven down the price of bitcoin
The recent price drop in bitcoin may have been related to a selloff following an alleged massive cryptocurrency scam that apparently swindled up to $2.9 billion from investors, according to some reports. The scam in question, called “Plus Token,” is said to be a Ponzi scheme that primarily operated in China. Described on its website as a “new global revolution,” ...
23 local governments in Texas crippled by coordinated ransomware attack
About 23 local governments in Texas have been crippled in an unprecedented coordinated ransomware attack. The attack started on Friday. Texas State officials didn’t name which local governments were affected, only describing them as “smaller local governments.” According to Google, Texas has 4,835 locals governments, meaning that although 23 may sound like a lot, they ...
Proving foldable smartphones are hard, Huawei delays release of Mate X
Smartphone sales have stagnated over the past few years and even started to decline as newly released phones struggle to provide any great leap forward in functionality and design. Then along came foldable phones in the first half of this year — but as it turns out, making them is hard and Huawei Electronics Co. Ltd. ...
700,000 Choice Hotels customer records stolen, held for ransom
Some 700,000 customer records belonging to Choice Hotels International Inc. have been stolen and those behind the data theft are demanding a ransom payment of 0.4 bitcoin ($4,142) to delete their copy. In a twist of a traditional failure to secure an online database story, those behind the data theft, revealed today, did not hack ...
Ripple’s Xpring invests $264M into micropayments startup Coil
Ripple Labs Inc.’s investment subsidiary Xpring today announced a grant of 1 billion Ripple XRP cryptocurrency worth about $264 million into Coil Technologies Inc., a provider of micropayments for content providers. The funding will be used by Coil to promote its adoption of XRP and the Interledger Protocol. Founded in 2018, Coil is attempting to change ...
Data analytics startup Incorta raises $30M to expand operations
Data analytics startup Incorta Inc. today said it has raised $30 million in new funding to expand its headcount, invest in further product development, deepen relationships with the major public cloud providers and reduce operational costs. The Series C round was led by Sorenson Capital with existing investors including GV (formerly Google Ventures), Kleiner Perkins, M12 (formerly Microsoft ...
Bitcoin price drops as US-China trade tensions ease, renminbi rises
The price of bitcoin looked set to drop below the important $10,000 mark in trading Wednesday as the cryptocurrency loses most of it gains made since the beginning of the month. Bitcoin was trading at $10,043.19 as of 10:45 p.m. EDT, down 5.5% over the last 24 hours and well down from its monthly high of $11,972.61 on Aug. ...
Huawei employees allegedly helped African governments spy on opponents
Employees of Huawei Electronics Co. Ltd. have assisted governments in at least two African countries of spying on political opponents, the Wall Street Journal said today in an exclusive investigation. The report, which did not find collusion between Huawei and the Chinese government in the alleged spying activity nor found that Huawei itself was aware of the ...
BC Partners acquires IT services firm Presidio for $2.1B
Information technology services firm Presidio Inc. is going private two years after its initial public offering as the company’s board accepted a $2.1 billion all-cash acquisition offer from private equity firm BC Partners. The deal values Presidio shares at $16 each, a 21% premium over the company’s previous closing price of $13.19 Tuesday. The price ...
Capital One hacker may have stolen data from 30+ other companies
Paige A. Thompson, the alleged hacker behind the theft of more than 100 million customer records from Capital One Financial Corp., may have stolen data from more than 30 other companies and organizations, according to a court filing made public today. The allegations came via the Department of Justice, which said in the filing that the theft of ...