The Hackx0rs Were Active

Yup, you read that right. The internet was a flurry of activity recently involving bad actors.

First came the news of a possible data breach involving popular family genetics company 23andMe.

Apparently, a hacker made off with millions of "pieces of data" from the website and tried to auction that data off. While 23andMe has denied claims of a data breach, it did offer an explanation of what might have happened, and it had to do with users using the same password on more than one website.

23andMe said the hacker may have relied on a technique called credential stuffing i.e. collecting passwords stolen from other sites and reusing them in a bid to hijack 23andMe accounts.

Folks, here's your reminder to never use the same password on multiple websites.

The 23andMe hack pales in comparison to what happened next, though.

On Tuesday, each of Amazon, Google, and Cloudflare reported one of the largest distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks in the internet's history.

According to Google, bad actors used a new novel technique called HTTP/2 Rapid Reset that reached a peak of 398 million requests per second — 7.5x larger than the next largest DDoS attack known to mankind. For context, the two-minute DDoS attack generated more requests than the total number of article views reported by Wikipedia during the entire month of September 2023. YIKES!

Each of the providers has taken steps to mitigate the fallout from the attack and shared technical details that you can read about here, here, and here.

Google ranked #5 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings while Amazon was on the #11 spot.

After Long Wait, Microsoft Completes Activision-Blizzard Acquisition 🕹️

After what might have felt like ages, Microsoft finally got around acquiring Call of Duty-maker Activision-Blizzard in one of the largest acquisitions in the gaming industry.

For those that weren't following the acquisition closely, there was a LOT of regulatory drama involved in the $69 billion purchase, pitting Microsoft, the creator of the Xbox console, against Sony, which was worried the acquisition would limit access to the Call of Duty titles to gamers on its PlayStation platform.

Microsoft offered assurances that it would not limit access to the popular title, but Sony was adamant, and used every opportunity that it could to drum up support against the takeover. Nonetheless, it looks like Microsoft was able to make a case for itself, successfully fending off regulatory concerns by agreeing to divest certain streaming rights for video games in a bid to make the acquisition a reality.

Microsoft ranked #12 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings.

In Other News.. 📰

• What happens to Snap? — via The Verge.
• Ferrari to accept crypto as payment for its cars in the US — via Reuters.
• AI voice clones mimic politicians and celebrities, reshaping reality — via The Washington Post.
• How roboticists are thinking about generative AI — via TechCrunch.
• TikTok steps up efforts to counter misinformation about Israel-Hamas war — via CNN.
• Artificial intelligence's $100 billion possibility — via Axios.
• Every Franchise Xbox Now Owns After Buying Activision — via Kotaku.
• Australia fines X, formerly Twitter, for not answering questions on child abuse content — via CNBC.

And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️

— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon

*All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page.