Author: TechBrunch

Several public websites designed to help courts in the U.S. and Canada manage potential jurors' personal information had simple security flaws that could easily leak sensitive data such as names and home addresses, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. A security researcher, who requested anonymity for this story, contacted TechCrunch for details on the easily exploitable vulnerability and identified at least a dozen jury websites created by government software maker Tyler Technologies, which he said appear to be vulnerable because they run on the same platform. Our locations are located throughout the country, including California, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and…

Italian company Bending Spoons had been operating largely under the radar until last month. Within 48 hours, the company announced its acquisition of AOL and a major $270 million raise, quadrupling its valuation to $11 billion from the $2.55 billion it set in early 2024. Bending Spoons has grown rapidly by acquiring struggling technology brands like Evernote, Meetup, and Vimeo, then increasing profitability through aggressive cost-cutting and price increases. The firm's approach is similar to private equity, with one important difference. That said, Bending Spoons has no plans to sell these businesses. Andrew Dumont, founder and CEO of Curious, a…

Google has partnered with Accel to discover and fund early-stage AI startups in India in a first-of-its-kind collaboration for the Google AI Futures Fund, launched earlier this year. On Tuesday, Accel and Google announced a partnership to co-invest up to $2 million in each startup through Accel's Atoms program, with each company contributing up to $1 million. The 2026 cohort will focus on Indian and Diaspora founders who are building AI products from day one. “The thought process is to not only support AI products built in India for the global market, but to build AI products for billions of…

The Trump administration has disbanded the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the controversial federal cost-cutting team previously led by Elon Musk, even though the department still had months left in its term. Reuters first reported over the weekend that DOGE was disbanded, ending a months-long effort by Musk and his associates, many of whom were recruited from various private companies, to curtail allegations of fraud, waste and reduce workforces across the federal government. DOGE was created by an executive order signed by President Trump in January. The effort was expected to last nearly two years. As of early November, DOGE…

Several major U.S. banks and mortgage companies are reportedly rushing to investigate how much customer data was stolen in a cyberattack on a New York financial technology company earlier this month. SitusAMC, which provides technology to more than 1,000 commercial and real estate lenders, acknowledged in a statement over the weekend that it identified the data breach on November 12th. The company said that during the cyberattack, unspecified hackers stole corporate data related to SitusAMC's relationships with bank customers, as well as “accounting records and legal contracts.” The statement added that the scope and nature of the cyberattack “remains under…

Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike confirmed last month that it had fired a “suspicious insider” who allegedly provided information about the company to a notorious hacking group. A hacking collective known as Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters published screenshots on a public Telegram channel late Thursday and early Friday morning that showed insider access to CrowdStrike systems. A screenshot seen by TechCrunch shows a dashboard with links to company resources, including the user Okta dashboard that employees use to access internal apps. The hackers claimed on their Telegram channel that CrowdStrike was compromised by a recent breach at Gainsight, a customer relationship management company…

Google has admitted that hackers stole more than 200 companies' data stored in Salesforce in a massive supply chain hack. Salesforce said Thursday that “Salesforce data for certain customers” had been compromised, although it did not name the affected companies. The data was stolen through an app published by Gainsight, which provides a customer support platform for other companies. Austin Larsen, principal threat analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, said in a statement that the company is “aware of over 200 Salesforce instances that may be affected.” After Salesforce announced the breach, a notorious and somewhat obscure hacking group known…

The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 along party lines Thursday to repeal a rule requiring major U.S. phone and internet companies to meet certain minimum cybersecurity requirements. Two Trump-appointed FCC commissioners, Chairman Brendan Carr and his Republican colleague Olivia Trustee, voted in favor of repealing a rule requiring telecommunications carriers to “protect their networks from unlawful access and interception.” The Biden administration adopted these rules before leaving office earlier this year. Anna Gomez, the FCC's only Democratic commissioner, opposed it. In a statement after the vote, Gomez said the overturned rule was “the only meaningful effort this agency has taken”…

People in Silicon Valley tend to dismiss the startup market across the pond as too small or not hungry enough, a sentiment not unlike how Europeans view their potential. This year's annual Slush conference in Helsinki showed a venture market that feels on the brink of transformation, poised for the first trillion-dollar startups. Founders, venture investors and government officials alike acknowledged the obstacles that have traditionally prevented Europe from reaching its true size and potential. For years, European founders have moved to the United States to start their companies or exited earlier than necessary because they operated in markets lacking…

Salesforce announced Wednesday that it is investigating a breach of “Salesforce data for certain customers” through an app published by Gainsight, which sells a platform for other companies to manage their customers. In a notice published late Wednesday, Salesforce said the hack involved “Gainsight published applications connected to Salesforce that are installed and managed directly by customers.” Salesforce said there is “no indication that this issue is due to a vulnerability in the Salesforce platform” and that the activity appears to be related to Gainsight's “external connections to Salesforce.” When asked for comment, Salesforce spokesperson Nicole Aranda directed TechCrunch to…