A mysterious Internet of Things bot first identified in October is now believed to be the work of a vigilante hacker who is attempting to block infections from nefarious bots such as the notorious Mirai. According to Waylon Grange at Symantec Corp., the Hajime bot, which was first believed to be an undeveloped bot that ...

The son of a Russian lawmaker who was convicted in August on 38 counts related to his hacking of point-of-sale computers to steal and sell credit card numbers on the darknet has received a record sentence for his crimes. Thirty-two-year-old Roman Valerevich Seleznev (pictured), the son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the Russian Parliament, was ...

A stealth startup founded by a number of Google Inc. veterans who may be working on next-generation artificial intelligence-based computer chips has raised $10.3 million in venture capital funding, according to one report. CNBC stumbled across the funding round for the company known as Groq Inc. via Securities and Exchange Commission filings from October and ...

Despite raising $9 million in a crowdfunding campaign, smart payments card startup Plastc Inc. has filed for bankruptcy after not managing to deliver even one card. The company, founded in 2013, was attempting to build the Plastc Card, a credit card-shaped smart card that in conjunction with an app could store credit, debit, gift, loyalty and ...

San Francisco-based machine learning data management startup SafeGraph Inc. has raised a $16 million funding round led by IDG Ventures USA that included more than 100 high-profile individual investors. Among the investors in the unusual Series A round are Peter Thiel, Adam D’Angelo, Romesh Wadhwani, Eric Cantor, KT zu Guttenberg, Prince Turki Al Saud, Jack Dangermond, ...

Leading Chinese bitcoin exchange OKCoin has suspended incoming U.S. dollar wire transfers, sending a shudder through the cryptocurrency community days after Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex (BTXNA Inc.) suspended all wire transfers. In an email to customers, the exchange said the move to suspend U.S. dollar wire transfers was temporary because of issues with “intermediary banks,” adding: ...

A lawsuit filed against American high-end electronics maker Bose Corp. alleges that the company is spying on its users via an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to. According to the filing lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, plaintiff Kyle Zak alleges that Bose’s app violates ...

In a surprising turn of events, Google Inc. is said to be developing an ad blocker for its highly popular Chrome web browser, at least according to one report Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal, quoting people familiar with the company’s plans, claims that the ad-blocking feature would be turned on by default within Chrome but would ...

Israeli cloud security startup Dome9 Security Inc. has raised $16.5 million in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Corp. along with a number of existing investors. Under the deal, SoftBank will become the leading distributor of Dome9’s Arc cloud infrastructure security platform in the Japanese market. Founded in 2010, Dome9 offers a cloud firewall ...

OurMine, the hacking group behind the hacks of Facebook Inc. founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Google Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai and others, has claimed responsibility for a mass hack of YouTube that it claims is the largest in the site’s history. The hack, launched on Good Friday, breached thousands of YouTube accounts primarily related to YouTube network Studio 71, which ...