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How to tell if your online accounts have been hacked

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More and more hackers are targeting regular individuals with the goal of stealing their crypto, perhaps moving into their bank accounts, or just stalking them. These varieties of attacks are still relatively rare, so there’s no need for alarm. But it’s vital to know what you possibly can do to protect yourself if you watched someone got into your email or social media account.

A number of years ago, I wrote a guide to help people protect themselves, and understand that almost all of the businesses you have an account with already give you tools to take control of your accounts’ security, even before you contact them for help, which in some cases you continue to should do. 

Here we break down what you possibly can do on several different online services. 

Just like within the previous guide, there’s a vital caveat. You should know that these methods don’t guarantee that you simply haven’t been compromised. If you continue to aren’t sure, you need to contact knowledgeable, especially if you’re a journalist, a dissident or activist, or otherwise someone who has the next risk of being targeted. In those cases, the non-profit Access Now has a digital security helpline that can connect you to one in all their experts.

Another caveat, if you don’t do that already, you need to enable multi-factor authentication on all your accounts, or at the least a very powerful ones (email, banking, social media). This directory is an important resource that teaches you the way to enable multi-factor authentication on greater than 1,000 web sites. (Note that you simply don’t have to use the multi-factor app promoted on that site, there are plenty of other alternatives.) 

Increasingly some online services offer using a physical security key or a passkey stored in your password manager, which is one in all the best safeguards to prevent account intrusions that depend on password-stealing malware or phishing.

Gmail lists all of the places your account is energetic

The very first thing you need to do if you watched someone has broken into your Gmail account (and by extension all the opposite Google services linked to it) is to scroll all the best way down in your inbox until you see “Last account activity” in the underside right corner.

Click on “Details.” You will then see a pop-up window that appears like this: 

A listing of recent account activity on Google’s account page. Image Credit: TechCrunch

These are all of the places where your Google account is energetic. If you don’t recognize one in all them, for instance if it comes from a distinct location, like a rustic you haven’t visited recently or never been, then click on “Security Checkup.” Here you possibly can see what devices your Google account is energetic in.   

Google's Security Checkup Page, including a view that shows
Google’s Security Checkup Page, including a view that shows “where you’re signed in.” Image Credits: TechCrunch.

If you scroll down, you too can see “Recent security activity.”

a screenshot of recent security activity on Google's Security Checkup Page
Recent security activity on Google’s Security Checkup Page. Image Credits: TechCrunch

Check this list to see if there are any devices that you simply don’t recognize. If in any of those places above you see something suspicious, click on “See unfamiliar activity?” and alter your password:

a dialog window that says
Changing your Google account password. Image Credits: TechCrunch

After you modify your password, as Google explains here, you will probably be signed out of each device in every location, except on the “devices you use to verify that it’s you when you sign in,” and a few devices with third-party apps that you simply’ve granted account access to. If you would like to sign on the market too, go to this Google Support page and click on on the link to “View the apps and services with third-party access.”

a screenshot showing a Google help page describing common questions about account access.
Removing third-party access to your Google account. Image Credits: TechCrunch

Finally, we also suggest considering turning on Google’s Advanced Protection on your account. This enhanced security protection makes phishing your password and hacking into your Google account even harder. The drawback is that you simply need to purchase security keys, hardware devices that function a second-factor. But we expect this method is vital and a must-use for people who find themselves at the next risk. 

Also, do not forget that your email account is probably going linked to all your other vital accounts, so moving into it could end up to be step one into hacking into other accounts. That’s why securing your email account is more vital than virtually some other account.

Outlook and Microsoft logins are within the account settings

If you’re concerned about hackers having accessed your Microsoft Outlook account, you possibly can check “when and where you’ve signed in,” as Microsoft puts it within the account settings.

To go to that page, go to your Microsoft Account, click on Security on the left-hand menu, after which under “Sign-in activity” go to “View my activity.” 

a sign-in activity checker window for MIcrosoft accounts.
Checking recent sign-in activity on your Microsoft account. Image Credits: TechCrunch

At this point, you need to see a page that shows recent logins, what platform and device was used to log in, the variety of browser, and the IP address.  

a screenshot showing recent activity, including device, platform and approximate location of the user
Checking recent activity on your Microsoft account. Image Credits: TechCrunch

If something looks off, click on “Learn how to make your account more secure,” where you possibly can change your password, check “how to get better a hacked or compromised account“, and more.  

Microsoft also has a support portal with information on the Recent activity page.

As we noted above, your email account is the cornerstone of your online security, provided that it’s likely that almost all of your vital accounts — think social media, bank, and healthcare provider etc. — are linked to it. It’s a preferred goal for hackers who want to then compromise other accounts. 

Like other email providers, Yahoo (which owns TechCrunch) also offers a tool to check your account and sign-in activity with the goal of allowing you to see any unusual activity that could possibly be an indication of compromise. 

To access this tool, go to your Yahoo My Account Overview or click on the icon with your initial next to the e-mail icon on the highest right corner, and click on on “Manage your account.” 

a screenshot showing the "manage your account" section of your Yahoo account.
Accessing your Yahoo account information. Image Credits: TechCrunch

Once there, click on “Review recent activity.” On this page you’ll give you the option to see recent activity on your account, including password changes, phone numbers added, and what devices are connected to your account, and their corresponding IP addresses. 

a recent activity window for Yahoo account users, which includes a log of recent account actions, such as password changes.
Checking recent account activity on your Yahoo account. Image Credits: TechCrunch
another screenshot showing Yahoo account activity, including browser version, location and sign-in history
Checking recent account activity on your Yahoo account. Image Credits: TechCrunch

Given that it is probably going that you simply have linked your email address to sensitive web sites like your bank’s, your social media accounts, and healthcare portals, amongst others, you need to make an additional effort to secure it. 

Ensure your Apple ID is secure

Apple allows you to check what devices your Apple ID is logged in directly through the iPhone and Mac system settings, as the corporate explains here

On an iPhone or iPad, go to “Settings,” tap your name, and scroll down to see all of the devices that you simply are signed in on. 

a screenshot on an iPhone showing all the logged in devices on an Apple account.
A screenshot on an iPhone showing all of the logged in devices on an Apple account. Image Credits: Apple

On a Mac, click on the Apple logo on the highest left corner, then “System Settings,” then click on your name, and also you may even see an inventory of devices, similar to on an iPhone or iPad. 

A screenshot on a Mac showing all the logged in devices on an Apple account.
A screenshot on a Mac showing all of the logged in devices on an Apple account. Image Credits: Apple

If you click on any device, Apple says, you’ll give you the option to “view that device’s information, such as the device model, serial number,” and operating system version.

On Windows, you should use Apple’s iCloud app to check what devices are logged into your account. Open the app, and click on on “Manage Apple ID.” There you possibly can view the devices and get more information on them.

Finally, you too can get this information through the net, going to your Apple ID account page, then clicking on “Devices” within the left hand menu. 

A screenshot on a browser view showing all the logged in devices on an Apple account.
A screenshot on a browser view showing all of the logged in devices on an Apple account. Image Credits: Apple

How to check Facebook and Instagram security

The social networking giant offers a feature that allows you to see where your account is logged in. Head to Facebook’s “Password and Security” settings and click on on “Where you’re logged in.” 

a screenshot of a logged-in Facebook account Account login activity showing recently and all signed in devices attached to that account.
Account login activity for a Facebook account. Image Credits: TechCrunch

In the identical interface you too can see where you’re logged in with your Instagram account, provided it’s linked to your Facebook account. If the accounts should not linked, or you simply don’t have a Facebook account, go to Instagram’s “Account Center” to manage your Instagram account and click on on Password and Security, after which “Where you’re logged in.” 

Here you possibly can select to sign off from specific devices, perhaps since you don’t recognize them, or because they’re old devices you don’t use anymore. 

Just like Google, Facebook offers an Advanced Protection feature in addition to for Instagram, which essentially makes it harder for malicious hackers to log onto your account. “We’ll apply stricter rules at login to reduce the chances of unauthorized access to your account,” the corporate explains. “If we see anything unusual about a login to your account, we’ll ask you to complete extra steps to confirm it’s really you.” 

If you’re a journalist, a politician, or otherwise someone who’s more likely in danger to be targeted by hackers, you could want to activate this feature. 

It’s easy to see whether your WhatsApp is secure

In the past, it was only possible to use WhatsApp on one mobile device only. Now, Meta has added functionalities for WhatsApp users to use the app on computers, and likewise directly via browser. 

Checking where you logged in with your WhatsApp account is easy. Open the WhatsApp app on your cell phone. On iPhones and iPads, tap on the Settings icon in the underside right corner, then tap on “Linked devices.” 

There, you’ll give you the option to see an inventory of devices, and by clicking on one in all them you possibly can log them out. 

a screenshot showing all the linked devices attached to this WhatsApp account
Checking linked devices on a WhatsApp account. Image Credits: TechCrunch
another screenshot showing the linked devices attached to this WhatsApp account
Checking linked devices on a WhatsApp account. Image Credits: TechCrunch

On Android, tap on the three dots in the highest right corner of the WhatsApp app, then tap “Linked devices” and you will notice a page that’s very similar to what you’d see on Apple devices.

Signal also allows you to check for anomalies

Like WhatsApp, Signal now allows you to use the app via dedicated Desktop apps for macOS, Windows, in addition to Linux. 

a screenshot on an iPhone showing all the linked devices attached to this Signal account
Looking for linked devices attached to a Signal account. Image Credits: TechCrunch

From this screen of Linked Devices, you possibly can tap on “Edit” and take away the devices, which implies your account will probably be logged out and unlinked from those devices. 

X (Twitter) allows you to see what sessions are open

To see where you’re logged into X (formerly Twitter), go to X Settings, then click on “More” on the left hand menu, click on “Settings and privacy,” then “Security and account access,” and eventually “Apps and sessions.”

From this menu, you possibly can see what apps you have connected to your X account, what sessions are open (equivalent to where you’re logged in), and the access history of your account. 

You can revoke access to all other devices and locations by hitting the “Log out of all other sessions” button.

a screenshot showing all the logged in sessions on an X account from the web interface
Looking on the logged-in sessions on an X account. Image Credits: TechCrunch
a screenshot showing all the account access history on an X account from the web interface
Looking on the account access history on an X account. Image Credits: TechCrunch


This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Wiz acquires Dazz for $450 million to expand cybersecurity platform

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Wizardone of the talked about names within the cybersecurity world, is making a major acquisition to expand its reach of cloud security products, especially amongst developers. This is buying Dazzlespecialist in solving security problems and risk management. Sources say the deal is valued at $450 million, which incorporates money and stock.

This is a leap within the startup’s latest round of funding. In July, we reported that Dazz had raised $50 million at a post-money valuation of just below $400 million.

Remediation and posture management – two areas of focus for Dazz – are key services within the cybersecurity market that Wiz hasn’t sorted in addition to it wanted.

“Dazz is a leader in this market, with the best talent and the best customers, which fits perfectly into the company culture,” Assaf Rappaport, CEO of Wiz, said in an interview.

Remediation, which refers to helping you understand and resolve vulnerabilities, shapes how an enterprise actually handles the various vulnerability alerts it could receive from the network. Posture management is a more preventive product: it allows a company to higher understand the scale, shape and performance of its network from a perspective, allowing it to construct higher security services around it.

Dazz will proceed to operate as a separate entity while it’s integrated into the larger Wiz stack. Wiz has made a reputation for itself as a “one-stop shop,” and Rappaport said the integrated offering will proceed to be a core a part of it.

He believes this contrasts with what number of other SaaS corporations are built. In the safety industry, there are, Rappaport said, “a lot of Frankenstein mashups where companies prioritize revenue over building a single technology stack that actually works as a platform.” It could be assumed that integration is much more necessary in cybersecurity than in other areas of enterprise IT.

Wiz and Dazz already had an in depth relationship before this deal. Merat Bahat — the CEO who co-founded Dazz with Tomer Schwartz and Yuval Ofir (CTO and VP of R&D, respectively) — worked closely with Assaf Rappaport at Microsoft, which acquired his previous startup Adallom.

After Rappaport left to found Wiz together with his former Adallom co-founders, CTO Ami Luttwak, VP of Product Yinon Costica and VP of R&D Roy Reznik, Bahat was one in all the primary investors. Similarly, when Bahat founded Dazz, Assaf was a small investor in it.

The connection goes deeper than work colleagues. Bahat and Rappaport are also close friends, and she or he was the second family of Mickey, Rappaport’s beloved dog, referred to as Chief Dog Officer Wiz (together with LinkedIn profile). Once the deal was done, the 2 faced two very sad events: each Bahat and Mika’s mother died.

“We hope for a new chapter of positivity,” Bahat said. The cycle of life does indeed proceed.

Rumors of this takeover began to appear earlier this month; Rappaport confirmed that they then began talking seriously.

But that is not the one M&A conversation Wiz has gotten involved in. Earlier this 12 months, Google tried to buy Wiz itself for $23 billion to construct a major cybersecurity business. Wiz walked away from the deal, which might have been the biggest in Google’s history, partly because Rappaport believed Wiz could turn into a fair larger company by itself terms. And that is what this agreement goals to do.

This acquisition is a test for Wiz, which earlier this 12 months filled its coffers with $1 billion solely for M&A purposes (it has raised almost $2 billion in total, and we hear the subsequent round will close in just a few weeks). . Other offers included purchasing Gem security for $350 million, but Dazz is its largest acquisition ever.

More mergers and acquisitions could also be coming. “We believe next year will be an acquisition year for us,” Rappaport said.

In an interview with TC, Luttwak said that one in all Wiz’s priorities now’s to create more tools for developers that have in mind what they need to do their jobs.

Enterprises have made significant investments in cloud services to speed up operations and make their IT more agile, but this shift has include a significantly modified security profile for these organizations: network and data architectures are more complex and attack surfaces are larger, creating opportunities for malicious hackers to find ways to to hack into these systems. Artificial intelligence makes all of this far more difficult when it comes to malicious attackers. (It’s also a chance: the brand new generation of tools for our defense relies on artificial intelligence.)

Wiz’s unique selling point is its all-in-one approach. Drawing data from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and other cloud environments, Wiz scans applications, data and network processes for security risk aspects and provides its users with a series of detailed views to understand where these threats occur, offering over a dozen products covering the areas, corresponding to code security, container environment security, and provide chain security, in addition to quite a few partner integrations for those working with other vendors (or to enable features that Wiz doesn’t offer directly).

Indeed, Wiz offered some extent of repair to help prioritize and fix problems, but as Luttwak said, the Dazz product is solely higher.

“We now have a platform that actually provides a 360-degree view of risk across infrastructure and applications,” he said. “Dazz is a leader in attack surface management, the ability to collect vulnerability signals from the application layer across the entire stack and build the most incredible context that allows you to trace the situation back to engineers to help with remediation.”

For Dazz’s part, once I interviewed Bahat in July 2024, when Dazz raised $50 million at a $350 million valuation, she extolled the virtues of constructing strong solutions and this week said the third quarter was “amazing.”

“But market dynamics are what trigger these types of transactions,” she said. She confirmed that Dazz had also received takeover offers from other corporations. “If you think about the customers and joint customers that we have with Wiz, it makes sense for them to have it on one platform.”

And a few of Dazz’s competitors are still going it alone: ​​Cyera, like Dazz, an authority in attack surface management, just yesterday announced a rise of $300 million at a valuation of $5 billion (which confirms our information). But what’s going to he do with this money? Make acquisitions, after all.

Wiz says it currently has annual recurring revenue of $500 million (it has a goal of $1 billion ARR next 12 months) and has greater than 45% of its Fortune 100 customers. Dazz said ARR is within the tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars and currently growing 500% on a customer base of roughly 100 organizations.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Department of Justice: Google must sell Chrome to end its monopoly

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Google corporate logo hangs outside the Google Germany offices

The U.S. Department of Justice argued Wednesday that Google should sell its Chrome browser as part of a countermeasure to break the corporate’s illegal monopoly on online search, according to a filing with the Justice Department. United States District Court for the District of Columbia. If the answer proposed by the Department of Justice is approved, Google won’t have the option to re-enter the search marketplace for five years.

Ultimately, it’ll be District Court Judge Amit Mehta who will determine what the ultimate punishment for Google might be. This decision could fundamentally change one of the most important firms on the planet and alter the structure of the Internet as we understand it. This phase of the method is anticipated to begin sometime in 2025.

In August, Judge Mehta ruled that Google constituted an illegal monopoly since it abused its power within the search industry. The judge also questioned Google’s control over various web gateways and the corporate’s payments to third parties to maintain its status because the default search engine.

The Department of Justice’s latest filing says Google’s ownership of Android and Chrome, that are key distribution channels for its search business, poses a “significant challenge” to remediation to ensure a competitive search market.

The Justice Department has proposed other remedies to address the search engine giant’s monopoly, including Google spinning off its Android mobile operating system. The filing indicated that Google and other partners may oppose the spin-off and suggested stringent countermeasures, including ending the use of Android to the detriment of search engine competitors. The Department of Justice has suggested that if Google doesn’t impose restrictions on Android, it must be forced to sell it.

Prosecutors also argued that the corporate must be barred from stepping into exclusionary third-party agreements with browser or phone firms, resembling Google’s agreement with Apple to be the default search engine on all Apple products.

The Justice Department also argued that Google should license its search data, together with ad click data, to competitors.

Additionally, the Department of Justice also set conditions prohibiting Google from re-entering the browser market five years after the spin-off of Chrome. Additionally, it also proposed that after the sale of Chrome, Google mustn’t acquire or own any competing ad text search engine, query-based AI product, or ad technology. Moreover, the document identifies provisions that allow publishers to opt out of Google using their data to train artificial intelligence models.

If the court accepts these measures, Google will face a serious setback as a competitor to OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic in AI technology.

Google’s answer

In response, Google said the Department of Justice’s latest filing constitutes a “radical interventionist program” that may harm U.S. residents and the country’s technological prowess on the planet.

“The Department of Justice’s wildly overblown proposal goes far beyond the Court’s decision. “It would destroy the entire range of Google products – even beyond search – that people love and find useful in their everyday lives,” said Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer Kent Walker. blog post.

Walker made additional arguments that the proposal would threaten user security and privacy, degrade the standard of the Chrome and Android browsers, and harm services resembling Mozilla Firefox, which depends upon Google’s search engine.

He added that if the proposal is adopted, it could make it tougher for people to access Google search. Moreover, it could hurt the corporate’s prospects within the AI ​​race.

“The Justice Department’s approach would lead to unprecedented government overreach that would harm American consumers, developers and small businesses and threaten America’s global economic and technological leadership at precisely the moment when it is needed most,” he said.

The company is to submit a response to the above request next month.

Wednesday’s filing confirms earlier reports that prosecutors were considering getting Google to spin off Chrome, which controls about 61% of the U.S. browser market. According to to the StatCounter web traffic service.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Snowflake acquires data management company Datavolo

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The Snowflake Inc logo, which represents the American cloud computing-based data company that offers cloud-based storage and analytics services, is being displayed on their pavilion at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, Spain, on February 28, 2024.

Cloud giant Snowflake has agreed to take over Datavoloa company managing the data pipeline, for an undisclosed amount.

Snowflake announced the deal on Wednesday after the market bell closed, while reporting its third-quarter 2025 earnings. The purchase has not yet closed and is subject to customary closing conditions, Snowflake noted wa release.

Joseph Witt and Luke Roquet, who met while working together at Hortonworks, founded Datavolo in 2023. Witt was previously a vp at Cloudera, and Roquet was Cloudera’s chief marketing officer and, before that, director of business development at AWS.

Datavolo uses Apache NiFi, an open source data processing project developed by the NSA, to power a platform to automate data flow between disparate enterprise data sources. Data “processors” extract, cleanse, transform and enrich data, including for generative use of artificial intelligence.

With Datavolo having raised $21 million in enterprise capital from investors including Citi Ventures and General Catalyst prior to the acquisition, Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy envisions creating more comprehensive data pipelines for Snowflake customers. For example, he says Datavolo can enable users to interchange single-use data connectors with flexible pipelines that allow them to maneuver data from cloud and on-premises sources to Snowflake’s data cloud.

“By bringing Datavolo to Snowflake, we are increasing the amount of data captured by Snowflake over the lifecycle, providing our customers with both simplicity and cost savings, without sacrificing data extensibility,” Ramaswamy said in a press release. “We are thrilled to have the Datavolo team join Snowflake as we accelerate the best platform for enterprise data – unstructured and structured, batch and streaming – and committed to the success of the open source community.”

Witt says Snowflake will support and help manage the Apache NiFi project after the acquisition closes. “Data engineering at scale can be extremely expensive and complex, and our goal has always been to simplify our customers’ experiences so they can realize value faster,” he added within the press release. “By joining forces with Snowflake, we can deliver the massive scale and radical simplicity of the Snowflake platform to our customers, ultimately unlocking data engineering for more users.”

Thanks partly to artificial intelligence, demand for data management technologies has increased. Fortune’s business insights estimates that the worldwide enterprise data management market could possibly be price $224.87 billion by 2032.

However, data management has been a challenge for enterprises long before the substitute intelligence boom. According to in a 2022 survey by Great Hopetions, a data quality platform, 91% of organizations said data quality issues impact their performance.

Against this backdrop, it isn’t surprising that firms like Datavolo are gaining prominence.

Today was a giant day for Snowflake who reported better-than-expected earnings sent the company’s shares up 19%. In addition to the acquisition of Snowflake, the company announced a multi-year partnership with Anthropic to integrate the startup’s AI models into Snowflake’s Cortex AI, Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Analyst products.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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