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5 days ago | 
techcrunch.com | Zack Whittaker
A digital rights group blasted the Florida bill, but lawmakers voted to advanced the draft law.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Zack Whittaker |Kyle Wiggers |Amanda Silberling
A consumer-grade spyware operation called SpyX was hit by a data breach last year, TechCrunch has learned. The breach reveals that SpyX and two other related mobile apps had records on almost two million people at the time of the breach, including thousands of Apple users. The data breach dates back to June 2024 but has not been previously reported, and there is no indication that SpyX’s operators ever notified its customers or those targeted by the spyware.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Zack Whittaker |Tim De Chant |Kyle Wiggers
Amazon will not say if it plans to take action against three phone surveillance apps that are storing troves of individuals’ private phone data on Amazon’s cloud servers, despite TechCrunch notifying the tech giant weeks earlier that it was hosting the stolen phone data.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Kirsten Korosec |Zack Whittaker |Charles Rollet |Sean O'Kane |Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
Elon Musk has spent decades building a universe of companies that has served as an incubator for up-and-coming engineers and a proving ground for his inner circle. That universe — an ecosystem of Silicon Valley tech titans, veterans of his companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and a crop of fresh-faced hackers and software engineers — has now collided with the U.S. federal government.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Zack Whittaker |Ingrid Lunden
CIA director John Ratcliffe has confirmed the Trump administration has paused its intelligence sharing operation with Ukraine, following a heated exchange between the two countries’ leaders on Friday. In response to a question during an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday, Ratcliffe did not provide further details about the decision, but said President Trump had asked for a “pause” in sending weapons shipments and intelligence to Ukraine.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Zack Whittaker |Rebecca Szkutak |Carly Page
As disruption from a suspected ransomware attack on newspaper publishing giant Lee Enterprises span into its second month, the cyberattack is also affecting payments to freelancers and contractors who work for the company, TechCrunch has learned. The cyberattack on Lee Enterprises on February 3 sparked widescale outages and ongoing disruption at dozens of newspapers across the United States, including delays to print editions.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Carly Page |Julie Bort |Kyle Wiggers |Zack Whittaker
Belgium is investigating an alleged data breach of its state security service (VSSE) by Chinese government hackers. In a statement sent to TechCrunch on Friday, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said an investigation into a cyberattack was opened in November 2023 after it learned about the alleged breach.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Zack Whittaker |Mike Butcher
A little-known phone surveillance operation called Spyzie has compromised more than half a million Android devices and thousands of iPhones and iPads, according to data shared by a security researcher. Most of the affected device owners, who are unknown, are likely unaware that their phone data has been compromised.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Zack Whittaker |Marina Temkin |Kyle Wiggers
There is immense power in being in control of your own data. As ownership and governance of apps and online services consolidate, it’s understandable if you want to consider your options when it comes to where you store your private data and records of your everyday activities. Fortunately, not every service out there is trying to monetize your personal data, and many offerings are just as good (if not often better) as their commercial or ad-supported rivals.
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1 month ago | 
techcrunch.com | Kate Park |Charles Rollet |Zack Whittaker |Sean O'Kane
Apple will be able to resume its iPhone 16 smartphone sales in Indonesia after the two sides came to an agreement, the Industry Ministry said during a press conference Wednesday, per a Reuters report. The ban was lifted five months after Indonesia blocked the U.S. iPhone maker from selling its iPhone 16 phones in Indonesia for violating the country’s regulation mandating that domestically sold smartphones and tablets must contain at least 40% locally produced components.
