Author: TechBrunch

The hacker group Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, which includes members of the gang known as the ShinyHunters, claims to have stolen the personal information of premium members of porn site Pornhub and is attempting to extort the site. On Friday, Pornhub acknowledged that it was among several companies affected by a previous breach at widely used web and mobile analytics provider Mixpanel that exposed unspecified “analytics events” for some Pornhub Premium users. On Monday, Bleeping Computer reported that it had seen a sample of stolen Pornhub data. This included personal information related to PornHub Premium members, such as registered email addresses…

The red-hot startup movement in Scandinavia continues. On Tuesday, Neil Murray, founder and general partner of Copenhagen-based firm The Nordic Web Ventures, announced the closing of a $6 million Fund III to continue investing in early-stage founders in the region. The fund will focus on writing first institutional checks to companies focused on robotics, AI-native companies, and deep tech founders. Murray, who is a solo practitioner, told TechCrunch that the first two funds were “test vehicles” to demonstrate the region's ability to identify and invest in top talent. Now, seven years later, he's written the first checks to more than…

After the 2021 bubble surge in VC investment failed to yield significant returns from many venture firms, limited partners such as endowments, pension plans, and sovereign wealth funds began funneling the bulk of their capital into a select group of established companies with proven track records. The latest big chunk of capital has flowed into Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 25-year-old venture company announced Monday that it has raised $9 billion in new funding, its largest funding in its history. At a time when few companies have successfully IPOed, Lightspeed was an early investor in Rubrik, Netskope, and Navan, all of…

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re tracking layoffs in the tech industry in 2025 so you can see the trajectory of the cutbacks and understand the impact on innovation across all types of companies. As businesses continue to embrace AI and automation, this tracker serves as a reminder of the human…

Apple and Google have released several software updates to protect against hacking campaigns targeting unspecified users. On Wednesday, Google released patches for several security bugs in its Chrome browser, noting that one of the bugs was being actively exploited by hackers before the company applied the patch. Unusually for Google, the company did not provide further details at the time. But on Friday, Google updated its page to say the bug was discovered by Apple's security engineering team and Google's threat analysis group, whose security researchers primarily track government hackers and mercenary spyware authors, indicating the hacking campaign may have…

At least 5.6 million people's names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers were stolen in a data breach at 700 Credit, which operates a credit reporting and identity verification service for auto dealers across the United States. In a statement on its website, the Michigan-based company blamed the October data breach on an unknown malicious actor. According to the Michigan Attorney General's Office, hackers stole personal data collected from dealers between May and October 2025. The credit monitoring service said it is currently mailing letters to individuals whose information was stolen in the data breach. “If you receive…

Security researchers say Home Depot had access to its internal systems exposed for a year after one of its employees, likely by mistake, posted a private access token online. Researchers discovered the exposed tokens and attempted to privately warn Home Depot about the security flaw, but were ignored for weeks. This revelation has now been corrected after TechCrunch contacted a company representative last week. Security researcher Ben Zimmermann told TechCrunch that he discovered a public GitHub access token owned by a Home Depot employee in early November, but it was released in early 2024. Zimmerman said that when he tested…

A company that makes photo booths is putting customers' photos and videos online because of a simple flaw in the website where the files are stored, according to a security researcher. The researcher, known as Zeacer, alerted TechCrunch about the security issue in late November after reporting the vulnerability to Hama Film, a photo booth maker with franchises in Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, in October, but received no response. Zeacer shared with TechCrunch a sample photo taken from Hama Film's servers that shows a group of apparently young people posing in a photo booth. In…

A baby was born at Waymo this week, and it wasn't even the first one. What started as a novelty story quickly became a reminder of how self-driving cars are quietly becoming a part of everyday life, removing all the clutter that comes with them. But the real growth story this week wasn't happening with San Francisco's robotaxis. It's playing out in Hollywood, too, with Netflix making an $82 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming and studio operations. Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Anthony Ha discuss what happens when a DVD-by-mail startup grows and…

Theo Baker is truly an anomaly. While journalism as a major has been in decline for years, with some schools even dropping it altogether, Baker, a senior at Stanford University, has focused on old-fashioned investigative reporting, and it's paying off. Baker first gained attention as a freshman when his reporting in the Stanford Daily led to the resignation of Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. After exposing two decades of allegations of research misconduct, Baker found himself “receiving anonymous letters, conducting stakeouts, and pursuing confidential sources” just one month into the university, according to the publisher. Meanwhile, established lawyers tried to…