Author: TechBrunch
Two members of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency may have accessed and shared Social Security numbers last year to help an advocacy group “overturn election results in certain states,” according to court documents. The revelations, first reported by Politico, come as part of a series of corrections to previous testimony by Social Security Administration officials related to DOGE's legal battle over access to Social Security data. Court documents do not name the two DOGE members or the advocacy group. In March 2025, a political advocacy group contacted two members of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) DOGE team “requested to…
Online mentoring site UStrive has resolved a security flaw that exposed the personal information of users, including children. The leaked data included UStrive users' names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other private and user-provided information, and was accessible to other logged-in users. The nonprofit, formerly known as Strive for College, provides online instruction to high school and college students through its platform. The organization did not say whether it plans to notify users about the security incident. Last week, someone who requested anonymity alerted TechCrunch to a security flaw in UStrive's mentoring platform. Anyone can see the stream of your…
In this episode of StrictlyVC Download, Connie Loizos speaks with Mary Jane Rubenstein, professor of religion and science and technology studies at Wesleyan University and author of the book “Endless Worlds: The Many Lives of the Multiverse,” which was the research material for the Oscar-winning film “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” As the space economy heats up and venture capital flows into startups promising everything from asteroid mining to lunar gas stations, Dr. Rubenstein offers a critical perspective on the ethics and values shaping humanity's expansion beyond Earth. Dr. Rubenstein will discuss how religious narratives have shaped space exploration, from…
Corinna Marshall worked in retail digital marketing for 11 years and realized the industry was outdated. Specifically, the technology that helps retail brands sell unsold and excess merchandise (off-channel inventory) wasn't as sophisticated as they thought. Brands sell their excess inventory at discount retailers like Nordstrom Rack, but they often lose money because unsold inventory is difficult to manage. Products are scattered across multiple warehouses, and teams must estimate the value of an item and the best time to sell it. “There is too much time between each step of the off-channel inventory funnel, making it difficult for brands and…
What happens if an AI agent decides the best way to complete a task is to blackmail you? That's not a hypothesis. Barmak Meftah, a partner at cybersecurity VC firm Ballistic Ventures, said something like this recently happened to an employee at a company working with an AI agent. The employee tried to suppress what the agent wanted to do and what he was trained to do, but the agent scanned the user's inbox for inappropriate emails and threatened to forward the email to the board of directors to blackmail the user. “In the agent's mind, it's doing the right…
TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 is the leading early-stage startup competition held at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, highlighting the world's most promising young companies. Each year, thousands of applicants from around the world compete for one of the 200 spots in this cohort. This gives you unparalleled visibility, access to top investors, and growth opportunities. Early-stage startups from around the world can join the Startup Battlefield email list and be the first to know when applications launch in mid-February. If you're ready to get in on the action, don't miss out. What is Startup Battlefield? Image credit: Kimberly White/Getty Images…
According to the Financial Times, Sequoia Capital is participating in a major funding round for Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude. This is a move that is sure to garner attention in Silicon Valley. why? That's because venture capital firms have historically avoided supporting competitors in the same field, preferring to bet on a single winner. But here's Sequoia, which has already invested in both OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI, and is now focusing on Anthropic as well. The timing is especially surprising given what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said under oath last year. As part of OpenAI's defense against…
According to court documents, a hacker posted the personal data of several hacking victims on his Instagram account @ihackthegovernment. Last week, Nicholas Moore, 24, of Springfield, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to repeatedly hacking into the U.S. Supreme Court's electronic filing system. At the time, the specific nature of the hacking crime to which Moore had admitted was not disclosed. Newly filled out documents first discovered by forensic monitor Seamus Hughes on Friday revealed further details about Mr Moore's hack. In addition to the Supreme Court's systems, Moore hacked into the networks of AmeriCorps, a government agency that runs scholarship volunteer programs,…
On Tuesday, UK-based Iranian activist Nariman Gharib tweeted an edited screenshot of a phishing link sent to him via a WhatsApp message. “Don't click on suspicious links,” Ghalib warned. The activist, who follows the digital aspects of Iran's protests from afar, said the campaign targets people like himself who are involved in Iran-related activities. The hacking operation comes as Iran grapples with its longest nationwide internet shutdown in its history, amid escalating anti-government protests and violent crackdowns across the country. Given that Iran and its closest adversaries are very active in offensive cyberspace (i.e. hacking people), we wanted to know…
As of Thursday, 92 million Iranians had been completely cut off from internet access for more than a week, making this nationwide internet shutdown one of the longest in history, according to experts. Last Thursday, Iranian leaders shut down internet and phone access across the country in response to massive anti-government protests that began late last year and sparked a brutal and deadly crackdown by authorities. As of this writing, Iranians have been without internet access for over 170 hours. The longest previous shutdown in the country was about 163 hours in 2019 and about 160 hours in 2025, said…