The story around Twitter’s massive breach continues to develop, A European Union court sides with Apple in a battle over unpaid taxes, and one last recap from ITWC’s virtual Digital Transformation Week event.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Thursday, July17, and I’m your host, Alex Coop.
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Well, That escalated quickly. We went from a few odd posts from Bill Gates and Elon Musk to what is likely the most catastrophic security breach in Twitter’s history. Here’s what we know:
-dozens of high profile Twitter accounts (as far as we can tell, they were all verified accounts) were compromised in one of the most widespread hacks the platform has ever seen. Strangely, the attack promoted a bitcoin scam that as of right now, has helped the hacker(s) rack up more than $200,000.
-Tweets that were deleted by the account owners appeared to be put back almost as fast. Twitter eventually prevented all verified accounts from tweeting at all. Those accounts have since been unlocked.
-Coindesk reported that some of the compromised accounts had multi-factor authentication enabled.
Vice has since reported that people who tried to change their passwords after the hack have been locked out of their accounts.
As of this recording, there is no word yet on when those accounts will get back access.
A European Union court has sided with Apple, awarding the tech giant victory in a battle over unpaid taxes. The case dates back to a decision in 2016 when the European Commission ruled that Ireland had given Apple an unfair tax advantage and therefore owed $14.9 billion. It was annulled by Europe’s General Court Wednesday, after the court said the EC did not prove that there was an advantage given. The European Commission has been pursuing several American tech giants over what they say are unfair tax breaks and can still challenge the ruling at the bloc’s top court.
And lastly, ITWC’s Digital Transformation Week wrapped up Thursday afternoon. The virtual event was capped off with a focus on digital transformation from the perspective of the CIO. Jim Balsillie, former chairman and co-CEO of Research in Motion (now known as BlackBerry), had some stern words for participants. He says Canada can’t afford to be seed corn for larger companies from other countries. Canada shouldn’t just be a rent payer. We should strive to be “rent collectors”, he explains, citing Canada’s struggles to go monetize its assets and go beyond research and development. A panel featuring three CIOs from various organizations helped crystalize skills CIOs need today to get through the remote work era, and finally, the event wrapped up with four separate awards. You can catch up on all of our winners on IT World Canada.com. What a great week.
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. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening
