Duncan Riley

Duncan Riley is a senior writer at SiliconANGLE covering Startups, Bitcoin, and the Internet of Things. Duncan is a co-founder of VC funded media company B5Media and founder of news site The Inquisitr, and was a senior writer at TechCrunch in its earlier days. Tips? Press releases? Intersting startup? email: duncan@nichenet.com.au or contact Duncan on Twitter @duncanriley

Latest from Duncan Riley

Sophisticated spear-phishing campaign targets UN and NGOs

The United Nations and nongovernment organizations are being targeted by a sophisticated spear-phishing campaign that’s attempting to gain account credentials for Okta, Office 365 and Outlook. Detected by security firm Lookout Inc. and publicized Thursday, the phishing campaign has been live since March 2019. It’s described as mobile-aware in that it can detect mobile devices. ...

7.5M customer records exposed on Adobe Creative Cloud database

Adobe Systems Inc. is the last company to expose customer data on an unsecured database, with 7.5 million Adobe Creative Cloud accounts found online. Discovered by Comparitech Ltd. and security researcher Bob Diachenko and publicized Friday, the exposed Elasticsearch database was open to all and sundry, requiring no password or other security measures to access ...

SoftBank acquires 80% stake in WeWork for $8B+ financing package

SoftBank Group Corp. will acquire an 80% stake in We Co., the parent company of WeWork in a deal worth $8 billion, the companies announced Tuesday. Under the deal, first speculated last week, SoftBank, already the biggest investor in WeWork, will provide $5 billion in new financing and up to $3 billion to buy out ...

Mark Zuckerberg grilled after giving lawmakers Libra cryptocurrency testimony

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg testified before the House Services Committee Wednesday, but though his remarks were released in advance Tuesday, the question-and-answer session delivered some surprises. The committee hearing, titled “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors,” was meant to be on Facebook’s proposed Libra cryptocurrency alone. But ...

Scoot rolls out its own custom moped based on Bird design

E-scooter company Scott Rides Inc., acquired by Bird Rides Inc. in June, today entered the custom electric moped market with its new Scoot Moped. Pitched as an alternative to ride-hailing services, the mopeds will initially launch in Los Angeles as part of a pilot program. Scoot plans to roll out the scooters to other territories the company ...

PeerNova raises $31M to grow its fintech blockchain platform

Financial industry software startup PeerNova Inc. today said it has raised $31 million in new funding to build additional services on its blockchain platform. The funding round was led by Mosaik Partners and included Overstock.com Inc.’s Medici Ventures and Intuitive Venture Partners. All three were existing investors, with Overstock.com having invested directly into the company in ...

Zuckerberg to tell hearing Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency will boost US financial leadership

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg will tell the House Services Committee Wednesday that the social networking giant is extending American financial leadership and democratic values across the world. The company released Zuckerberg’s set remarks ahead of his scheduled testimony for the hearing titled “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors.” Facebook’s ...

Snap returns to form with solid user growth and lower losses but shares fall

Snap Inc. beat expectations across the board in its third-quarter financials today as the chat app maker saw a return to form. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Snap reported revenue of $446 million, up 50% from a year ago and ahead of analysts’ average prediction of $435.1 million. Snap, infamous as saying that it may never make ...

European Data Protection Supervisor finds Microsoft contracts breach GDPR

Microsoft Corp.’s contracts with European Union institutions are in breach of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, according to preliminary findings published Monday by the European Data Protection Supervisor. GDPR, which became EU law in May 2018, regulates processing, movement and use of personal data in the EU with allowances for data transfers outside the union. ...

Customer data from Best Western and other hotels exposed in massive data breach

A database that included customer booking details belonging to Autoclerk, a hotel reservations system owned by Best Western International Inc., has been found exposed online in yet another case of misconfigured cloud storage. Discovered by security researchers at vpnMentor, the 179-gigabyte database included names, date of birth, home address, phone number, dates and costs of ...