Oops?

https://www.securityweek.com/colorado-city-pays-45000-ransom-after-cyber-attack?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Securityweek+%28SecurityWeek+RSS+Feed%29

Colorado City Pays $45,000 Ransom After Cyber-Attack

Lafayette, Colorado, officials announced Tuesday the city’s computer systems were hacked and they were forced to pay a ransom to regain access.

Lafayette officials said hackers disabled the city’s network services and blocked its access until the city paid a $45,000 fee, the Daily Camera reported.

The attack caused city emails, phones, online payments and reservation systems to temporarily shut down.

The city’s system servers and computers are still in the process of being cleaned and rebuilt. Once finished, the relevant data will be restored into the system and operations will resume. In the meantime, the city is using temporary phone numbers and emails.

… To combat future attacks, the city said it is installing crypto-safe backups, deploying additional cybersecurity systems and implementing regular vulnerability assessments. [Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Bob]

Something to worry about after the pandemic…

https://www.zdnet.com/article/evil-ai-these-are-the-20-most-dangerous-crimes-that-artificial-intelligence-will-create/

Evil AI: These are the 20 most dangerous crimes that artificial intelligence will create

… The ranking was put together after scientists from University College London (UCL) compiled a list of 20 AI-enabled crimes based on academic papers, news and popular culture, and got a few dozen experts to discuss the severity of each threat during a two-day seminar. 

Research paper in Crime Science

Is it really a bargain?

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/microsoft-has-one-year-to-transfer-tiktoks-code-to-the-us.html

Microsoft could buy TikTok for as much as $30 billion

Microsoft plans to finish its acquisition talks with TikTok within the next three weeks, ahead of the Sept. 15 deadline, CNBC’s David Faber reported Wednesday. The deal could be worth up to $30 billion.

If the deal goes through, Microsoft has already agreed with the U.S. government to bring TikTok’s code from China to the U.S. within one year. Faber also reported that the two sides haven’t landed on a price for TikTok yet, but it could be between $10 billion and $30 billion.

(Related) $30 Billion is only the US part...

https://www.scmp.com/tech/start-ups/article/3096226/tiktok-spend-us500-million-first-eu-data-centre-ireland

TikTok to spend US$500 million on first EU data centre in Ireland

TikTok, the embattled video-sharing app that has found itself at the centre of Washington-Beijing tensions, is setting up its first data centre in Europe with a 420 million euros (US$500 million) investment in Ireland, the company announced.

Promising to create hundreds of jobs, improve “the safeguarding and protection of TikTok user data” and shorten loading times for users in Europe, the new data centre is expected to be operational by early 2022.

Once it goes online, European user data will be stored at that location, TikTok said

(Related)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/05/microsoft-tiktok-ai/

Microsoft could use data culled from TikTok content, such as video of people of different ethnicities engaged in a variety of activities, to train its AI

Perspective. How profitable are genealogy sites?

https://www.bespacific.com/worlds-biggest-landlord-buys-worlds-biggest-genealogy-website/

World’s Biggest Landlord Buys World’s Biggest Genealogy Website

Gizmodo: “The Blackstone Group will buy a majority stake in the genealogy website Ancestry.com in a deal worth $4.7 billion, according to a press release published Wednesday. Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, is the world’s largest landlord and Ancestry is the world’s largest genealogy website, with over 6 billion records on family history in the U.S. alone. Ancestry also provides DNA testing and has over 18 million DNA test results in its databases. Ancestry officially operates in over 34 countries around the world, though it’s accessible from pretty much anywhere on the planet. The genealogy website was founded in Utah in 1996 and has over three million paying subscribers with revenue of roughly $1 billion a year. The company has expanded into DNA testing in recent years and has partnered with drug companies to share data, raising plenty of eyebrows among privacy activists. The Pentagon has even warned U.S. military personnel against using DNA test kits available from companies like Ancestry and 23andMe. Blackstone is buying a 75% stake in Ancestry, according to the Financial Times, and owns hundreds of thousands of properties around the world. Blackstone owns both commercial and residential real estate in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America, including high-profile hotels like the Bellagio in Las Vegas and the biggest apartment complex in Manhattan. The properties are often owned under countless subsidiary names…”