Good morning. Did you know that identity theft in the U.S. is on pace for a new record this year?
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, victim notices to almost 166 million people have already been issued this year. (And we’re only halfway there, Jon Bon Jovi.)
Time to reset those passwords and enable two-factor authentication, I think.
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Trial opens against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
It’s been a minute since this newsletter has written about a lawsuit against a Big Tech company. Not for long, eh?
An $8 billion class action lawsuit by Meta investors against CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his leadership team kicked off on Wednesday.
The allegations—which stretch all the way back to the 2018 Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal—state that Meta “did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users’ personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica,” as the Associated Press put it.
Shareholders allege that company leaders violated a 2012 consent order with the FTC to stop collecting and sharing personal data on Facebook users and friends without consent.
The company formerly known as Facebook allegedly went on to sell that user data to commercial partners, violating the consent order, according to the suit.
The company agreed to pay a $5.1 billion penalty to settle the FTC charges; shareholders now want Zuckerberg and team to reimburse Meta for the penalty, plus legal costs.
Total bill: More than $8 billion.
Zuckerberg, former COO Sheryl Sandberg, board member Marc Andreessen, and former board member Peter Thiel are expected to testify in the case, which is expected to last about a week. —AN
Anthropic is worth $100 billion or more, some investors say
The highly funded AI company Anthropic—the Pepsi to OpenAI’s Coke—is reportedly planning to raise even more money that would value the firm at more than $100 billion.
The San Francisco startup, founded by siblings (and OpenAI veterans) Daniela and Dario Amodei, is backed by Amazon, Alphabet, and others and was last valued at $61.5 billion in March.
Rival OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft and others, was most recently valued at $300 billion.
Much of the recent interest comes from investors who like what they see in terms of financial performance and have approached Anthropic for additional investment, according to reports by The Information and Bloomberg.
Anthropic’s annualized revenue recently jumped by a third, to $4 billion, according to recent reports.
The startup projects up to $35 billion in annual revenue by 2027—still trailing OpenAI’s own projections by tens of billions of dollars, but enough to theoretically place it on the Fortune 500 between Visa and PayPal. —AN
Google says hackers are stealing sensitive data from organizations via SonicWall gear
New nightmare fuel for IT pros everywhere: Malicious actors are breaching old appliances made by the cybersecurity company SonicWall to steal sensitive data from organizations.
In a blog post, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant wrote that they uncovered an ongoing campaign by a threat group involving the use of individuals’ credentials and one-time password seeds as well as a “backdoor” tool called OVERSTEP.
The trick, which may involve the exploitation of an unknown vulnerability, allowed the hackers to gain access to organizations “even after security updates are installed,” according to The Record. Yikes.
The investigation is ongoing. Google isn’t yet sure of the motivation behind the activity or how many victims are affected.
But they have a hunch. At least one organization’s data was eventually posted on the World Leaks marketplace, suggesting financial motivation.
The appliances in question are fully patched, end-of-life SonicWall Secure Mobile Access 100 series hardware. The manufacturer confirmed the issue and urged customers to reset the one-time password binding for all users as a precautionary measure. —AN
More tech
—Scale AI lays off 200 employees. 14% of the company’s staffers, plus 500 contractors, get pink slips after Meta’s $14.3 billion investment.
—ASML shares drop 11%. The Dutch semiconductor company says it “cannot confirm” 2026 growth in light of the global trade war.
—HPE settles with activist investor. Elliott Management will receive one or two seats on the company’s board; ousting CEO Antonio Neri remains possible.
—Google Pixel event set for Aug. 20. Expected: Pixels 10, 10 Pro, 10 Pro XL, and 10 Pro Fold, plus a new Watch.
—Mark Andreessen rails against DEI, NSF. The star tech investor’s exposed text messages have been widely criticized.
—Nvidia will “accelerate the recovery” of its China chip sales, CEO Jensen Huang says in Beijing.
—Amazon launches corporate AI agent platform. Dubbed Bedrock AgentCore, it promises support for any AI framework or model.
—Delta may use AI to determine your airfare. Real-time personalized pricing, coming to a plane near you.
Endstop triggered
