GoDaddy’s managed WordPress service was breached, Samsung is expected to announce a new chip plant in Texas, and Italy fines Apple and Amazon for anti-competitive restrictions.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Wednesday, November 24th, and I’m your host, Jori Negin-Shecter.
Compromised password leads to hack of GoDaddy’s managed WordPress service
On Monday, hackers accessed the email addresses of 1.2 million GoDaddy Managed WordPress customers. Email addresses, customer numbers, usernames and passwords were exposed in the breach. Security solutions provider WordFence noted that GoDaddy could be storing some customer credentials as plaintext or a similar format. This gave the attackers direct access to the data without the need to crack it. According to GoDaddy, the attackers were able to access the system using a compromised password, which the company promptly blocked. An investigation is ongoing.
Samsung is expected to announce a new chip-making plant in Austin, Texas, adding to its already expansive presence in the state. The new plant is estimated to cost $17 billion and will use cutting edge production technology sourced from ASML. With it, Samsung hopes to increase its competitiveness in the foundry business against global giants like Intel and TSMC. Samsung also hopes to capitalize on the ongoing semiconductor shortage.
And finally, Italy’s antitrust authority has fined Apple and Amazon more than 200 million Euros for anti-competitive practices. The authority has found that through a 2018 contract between the two, only select retailers were allowed to sell Apple and Beats products on Amazon Italy. This ultimately impacted competition on pricing, according to the watchdog. As a result, Amazon was fined 68.7 million euros and Apple 134.5 million. In addition, the two were ordered to lift the restrictions for resellers. Both Apple and Amazon denied any wrongdoing.
And now for something a little bit different. NASA and the U.S. department of energy want to install a nuclear power plant on the moon this decade. The two agencies put out a request for a proposal last Friday for ideas for a “flight-qualified nuclear fission system.” The system will be used to help explore the moon’s surface. According to the proposal criterias, the power source must operate independently from the sun, and be light enough to be transported into space. The winning proposal will have 12 months to build a concept.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire Newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. If you have a suggestion or tip, please drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Jori Negin-Shecter.