Analysts believe Cisco may have to spend big on acquisitions if it wants to remain competitive in a changing tech landscape.
Cisco built its business on networking equipment for the enterprise, the kind of equipment companies need to run data centers and on-premise networks. As Business Insider’sAaron Holmes argues, however, Cisco is facing an existential crisis: the cloud.
Cloud computing is on the rise now more than ever. While the transition was already well underway, the pandemic and rise of the remote workforce sent the transition into overdrive. As more and more companies rely on cloud computing to handle their basic operations, the need for expensive, enterprise-grade equipment to support on-premise networks and data centers drops precipitously.
As a result, many analysts believe Cisco will need to make additional acquisitions to remain competitive and adapt to the changing industry. Such an acquisition could be of an up-and-coming startup that offers a product or service complimentary to Cisco’s ambitions, or it could be a larger acquisition of an established rival.
Fortunately, as Holmes points out, this is nothing new for Cisco. The company has a long history of making acquisitions and isn’t shy about ponying up when the need arises. Hopefully, company leadership realizes the current cloud transitions represents one of those times.
Semiconductor company Broadcom is reportedly in talks to purchase SAS Institute, in a deal worth $15 to $20 billion.
Broadcom manufactures semiconductors that are used in networking equipment and the wireless industry. The company has been looking to expand beyond equipment manufacturing, trying to break into the more lucrative software market.
According to The Wall Street Journal, knowledgeable sources have confirmed Broadcom is in talks to purchase SAS for $15 to $20 billion. The deal could be finalized in a matter of weeks, as long as the talks don’t break down.
SAS is the world’s biggest privately held software company, with its analytics software used by companies around the world. Purchasing SAS would immediately catapult Broadcom, turning it into a major player in the software industry.
Verizon and Huawei have settled their patent dispute, ending litigation between the largest US wireless carrier and one of the largest equipment providers.
Huawei sued Verizon in 2020, accusing the US company of being unwilling to license its intellectual property, property Huawei claimed is covered by 12 patents. At the time Huawei sued, Verizon dismissed the suit as a “PR stunt.”
Huawei’s lawsuit filed overnight, and sent to us in the very early morning, is nothing more than a PR stunt. This lawsuit is a sneak attack on our company and the entire tech ecosystem. Huawei’s real target is not Verizon; it is any country or company that defies it. The action lacks merit, and we look forward to vigorously defending ourselves.
The case went to trial last week, but neither company allowed the trial to progress to completion. Instead, the two companies have settled, ending their dispute.
Verizon spokesperson Rich Young announced the news:
“Verizon is happy with the settlement reached with Huawei involving patent lawsuits. While terms of the settlement are not being disclosed, our team did an outstanding job bringing this protracted matter to a close. Our company continues to focus on what truly matters: providing millions of consumers and businesses with outstanding technology built on America’s most reliable networks.”
Web hosting service DreamHost has leaked a staggering 814 million customer records, including WordPress admin information.
DreamHost is one of the biggest and most popular web hosting services, with some 1.5 million sites. Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler, in connection with Website Planet, found an unprotected database containing records for the time period between 3/24/2018 to 4/16/2021.
According to Fowler, the database contains sensitive information, including admin information for WordPress sites.
The exposed records revealed usernames, display names, and emails for WordPress accounts. The monitoring and file logs exposed many internal records that should not have been publicly accessible. They were structured as roles, ID, display name, email, and other account related information.
There’s still much unknown about the leak, including how long the data was available, who else may have accessed it and whether DreamHost has notified customers. DreamHost did, however, acknowledge the leak and has passed it to their legal team.
Western Digital is advising users to disconnect their My Book NAS devices from the internet, following multiple reports of devices being remotely wiped.
My Book NAS devices are popular external backup options and have the ability to be used on a LAN for remote backup. Unfortunately, on June 23, users started reporting their devices being wiped remotely, according to BleepingComputer.
“I have a WD My Book live connected to my home LAN and worked fine for years. I have just found that somehow all the data on it is gone today, while the directories seems there but empty. Previously the 2T volume was almost full but now it shows full capacity,” a WD My Book owner wrote on the WD Community Forums.
“The even strange thing is when I try to log into the control UI for diagnosis I was-only able to get to this landing page with an input box for ‘owner password.’ I have tried the default password ‘admin’ and also what I could set for it with no luck.”
A look at the logs show the devices were issued a factory reset command starting around 3 PM June 23, and continuing into the night.
As BleepingComputer points out, it’s unclear where the problem lies. My Book devices, while connected to a LAN, sit behind a firewall, using the My Book Live cloud service to provide remote access. As a result, some users are convinced that only a breach on WD’s end could account for the existing situation.
WD is investigating, but does not believe there was a breach on their end. Instead, they think the devices were compromised via an unpatched vulnerability after being connected directly to the internet.
In the meantime, WD is recommending users disconnected My Book Live and My Book Live Duo devices from the internet in this advisory.
Fastly has said a single customer caused yesterday’s outage, an outage that had widespread repercussions.
Fastly made headlines yesterday when an issue with the company’s network led to a major outage. As a content delivery network, some of the biggest companies in the world rely on Fastly, including Amazon, the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.
According to TheStreet, the company rolled out a software update in May that introduced a bug that could be triggered under very specific circumstances. The bug only needed a single customer to have a very specific configuration for the bug to active, which ultimately happened.
“Even though there were specific conditions that triggered this outage, we should have anticipated it,” the company said. “We apologize to our customers and those who rely on them for the outage and sincerely thank the community for its support.”
A glitch at Fastly, a popular CDN, led to outages for some of the internet’s biggest sites Tuesday morning.
CDNs, or content delivery networks, are distributed networks of servers designed to help websites and web apps manage their user load and remain responsive. Fastly is a popular CDN option that helps power some of the biggest websites on the net.
Early Tuesday, a glitch at Fastly led to outages at the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.
Fastly confirmed the issue, and was able to quickly resolve it, although the outage illustrates the challenges associated with so many websites relying on a single point of potential failure.
“Today’s outage of major websites once again highlights the importance of access to online news and government services, underlining the importance of the internet for day to day living,” Matthew McDermott, Senior Officer, Access Partnership, a global tech policy consultancy, told WebPronews. “Fastly responded quickly to restored the issue but this serves as a reminder that resilience is an important part of digital infrastructure to modern life. Organisations and government bodies need to look at implementing the steps that look to assess, stabilize, improve and monitor to ensure this issue do not pose further problems in the future. Assessment is needed to determine the server’s bottleneck then stabilizing the issue with implementation of quick fixes will mitigate impact to broader stakeholders and users. After this, stakeholders will need to improve by augmenting and optimize server capabilities to ensure it meets the necessary needs. Lastly, regular monitoring will need to be set up using automated tools to help prevent future issues.”
“We are really seeing the impact of this hybrid work model,” says Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. “We are seeing the preparation for hybrid work and the return to the office. Customers are absolutely believing this is going to occur and they’re investing in it. Customers are turning to us to help them create the trusted workplace of the future.”
Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco, discusses on CNBC and in their quarterly earnings call how customers absolutely believe that the hybrid work model is in their future:
Customers Are Preparing For Hybrid Work Environment
Over the last couple of quarters, we’ve seen significant investment in next-generation wireless infrastructure to be ready for their employees to come to the office. As you load these wireless networks they are going to need campus refresh underneath them, and we’ve seen exactly that. The Catalyst 9000 platform has had four consecutive quarters of increasing growth sequentially.
We are really seeing the impact of this hybrid work model. We are seeing the preparation for hybrid work and the return to the office. Customers are absolutely believing this is going to occur and they’re investing in it.
Trusted Workplace of the Future
Let me now touch on Infrastructure Platforms. We saw strong demand across a majority of our portfolio, led by our next-generation Enterprise Networking and Service Provider solutions, as companies accelerate the modernization of their infrastructure. This modern infrastructure delivers higher performance and faster access to data while offering the best user experience in an increasingly distributed environment.
Customers are turning to us to help them create the trusted workplace of the future, with Wi-Fi access points, video endpoints, cameras and IoT sensors feeding data into DNA Center and DNA spaces. We’re enabling operations teams to remotely monitor workplace conditions for a safe return to office.
We’re also working to provide visibility beyond corporate networks, which is increasingly critical as our customers accelerate their adoption of SaaS and cloud solutions for hybrid work. At Cisco Live, we launched the industry’s first enterprise-wide full stack observability offering by integrating ThousandEyes cloud intelligence with our Catalyst switching portfolio and AppDynamics. This provides IT with visibility and actionable insights across both external and internal networks to provide a seamless digital experience for users. And with users more distributed than ever, it is vital that they have the most efficient and secure connection to the cloud.
Building the Internet of the Future
Our deep partnerships with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft allow native connectivity from our SD-WAN fabric to each of these cloud offerings. With our technology, customers can reduce deployment times and connect branch offices to cloud workloads in minutes. In our Webscale business, we delivered our sixth consecutive quarter of strong order growth, which increased over 25% in the quarter, and over 50% on a trailing 12-month basis.
Our Webscale customers are starting their 400 gig upgrade cycles and aggressively pursuing long-haul build-outs while our Carrier customers are exploring new architectures to realize the full potential of 5G. We are building the internet for the future by creating breakthrough innovation with our routing, optical and automation technologies to deliver significant economic benefits.
Customers Consuming Cisco Technology In New Ways
Recently, we launched a new routed optical networking solution, integrating our scalable, high-performance routers and Acacia’s pluggable optics, which offers significant cost savings. Last week, we announced our intent to acquire Sedona Systems to extend our cross-work automation platform to build on these capabilities. We also expanded our Silicon One platform, from a routing-focused solution to one which addresses the Webscale switching market, offering 10 networking chips ranging from 3.2 terabits to 25.6 terabits per second, making it the highest performance programmable routing and switching silicon on the market. We know our customers increasingly want to consume Cisco’s technology in new and more flexible ways.
At Cisco Live, we launched our new As a Service portfolio, Cisco Plus, and our first offer, Cisco Plus Hybrid Cloud, combining our data center compute, networking and storage portfolio. Cisco Plus includes our plans to deliver networking as a service, which will unify networking, Security, and observability across Access, WAN and Cloud domains to deliver an unparalleled experience for our customers.
Turning to Security, we had a record quarter, surpassing $875 million in revenue, up 13% as we expanded our reach with customers around the world. Our Security strategy is focused on delivering a simple and secure experience. We have an unrivaled ability to provide end-to-end Security capabilities across users, devices, applications and data, on any network or any cloud.
Powering Business Transformation
Wellbeing is top of mind for so many right now as we face a new way of working. This is why we launched People Insights to help people monitor and manage their wellbeing. These new features, devices and capabilities combined with Cloud Calling and Cloud Contact Center provide our customers with the most comprehensive and inclusive hybrid work platform.
Last week, we announced our intent to acquire Socio Labs. By integrating Slido and Socio Labs into our WebEx platform, we will also be able to provide the most comprehensive internal and external event management solution on the market. In summary, we had a very good quarter. I’m so proud of the continued success of the business transformation our teams are driving.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins: Customers Preparing For Hybrid Work Model
Comcast has successfully broke the 4Gbps speed barrier in a lab test, holding out promise for substantially faster internet speeds.
Internet speeds have become a much greater concern since the global pandemic, with remote work shining a spotlight on the need for fast, reliable internet access. While many companies offer download speeds in the upper double-digits, or even triple-digits, upload speeds are often substantially lower. This can pose a problem for videoconferencing, gaming, content uploads and more.
Comcast is on the verge of revolutionizing internet speeds, delivering upwards of 4Gbps in a lab test.
In the test environment, the research team demonstrated the ability of the SOC to deliver upstream and downstream throughputs of greater than 4 gigabits per second (Gbps). Future optimization is expected to drive even greater capacity.
For the time being, Comcast customers will still be limited to 3 – 35Mbps uploads. Comcast’s test, however, shows just what’s possible in the (hopefully) near future.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released its own internet speed test app in an effort improve its data on the state of US broadband.
The FCC has made eliminating the digital divide a major priority. For decades, there has been a huge disparity between the speed and quality of internet options available in urban vs rural areas. With the pandemic leading to record numbers of people working and learning from home, the real-world impact of the digital divide is more apparent than ever.
A major step in close the gap is understanding where the gap is, identifying communities and regions with subpar broadband service. The FCC’s new app will help the agency gain a clearer picture of the issues, and what is needed to address them.
“To close the gap between digital haves and have nots, we are working to build a comprehensive, user-friendly dataset on broadband availability. Expanding the base of consumers who use the FCC Speed Test app will enable us to provide improved coverage information to the public and add to the measurement tools we’re developing to show where broadband is truly available throughout the United States,” said Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel.
More information is available on the FCC website, and the app is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
The Biden administration has unveiled an ambitious plan to provide broadband access to all Americans, including those currently underserved.
The United States has struggled for years with a “digital divide,” a huge disparity between the internet access available in urban vs rural areas. In fact, some 35% of Americans (over 30 million) don’t have access to “minimally acceptable speeds.”
The Biden administration wants to change that, with plans to invest $100 billion to help close that gap, and ensure all Americans have access to broadband. In a fact sheet detailing the plan, the administration emphasizes the need to “future proof” broadband options, especially in underserved communities. It also emphasizes the importance of community and government-run broadband options.
Build high-speed broadband infrastructure to reach 100 percent coverage. The President’s plan prioritizes building “future proof” broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas so that we finally reach 100 percent high-speed broadband coverage. It also prioritizes support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co-operatives—providers with less pressure to turn profits and with a commitment to serving entire communities. Moreover, it ensures funds are set aside for infrastructure on tribal lands and that tribal nations are consulted in program administration. Along the way, it will create good-paying jobs with labor protections and the right to organize and bargain collectively.
Neither of these options are likely to be popular with many ISPs, although they have only their own business practices to blame. Companies have, for years, done the absolute minimum necessary to reap the maximize profits, rather than put their customers first. For example, AT&T announced late last year it would shutter its DSL service, even though it had halted further rollout of its fiber, leaving millions of customers without any good options.
Should the administration’s plans come to fruition, it may finally close the digital divide and bring all Americans into the 21st century.
Google has previewed its Network Connectivity Center, a tool to manage on-premise and cloud networks.
One of the biggest challenges administrators face is integrating cloud-based networks and workflows with existing on-premise networks. Network Connectivity Center is designed to help address those challenges, and make hybrid cloud solutions easier to manage.
Today, we are announcing the preview of Network Connectivity Center, which delivers planet-scale network management to simplify complex networks for your on-prem and cloud connectivity needs. Network Connectivity Center provides a single management experience to easily create, connect, and manage heterogeneous on-prem and cloud networks leveraging Google’s global infrastructure. Network Connectivity Center serves as a vantage point to seamlessly connect VPNs, partner and dedicated interconnects, as well as third-party routers and Software-Defined WANs, helping you optimize connectivity, reduce operational burden and lower costs—wherever your applications or users may be.
Google has expanded its partnership with Cisco to provide a truly turnkey solution. Together, the solution greatly simplifies “complex heterogeneous networks,” as well as reduces cost and operational burdens, while protecting mission critical applications.
“Google Cloud and Cisco continue driving innovation for our joint customers to enable secure and automated SD-WAN access from applications and services running on Google Cloud Platform,” said JL Valente, vice president, product management, for Cisco Enterprise Routing, SD-WAN and Cloud Networking. “Our latest integration not only extends the Cisco SD-WAN fabric to Google Cloud to automate provisioning of site-to-cloud connectivity effortlessly, but also gives customers the choice of using Google Cloud for providing a highly reliable, high performance global cloud network for site-to-site connectivity that can be deployed in minutes.”
Hybrid cloud options are an increasingly important segment of the industry, with IBM recently going all-in. Even AWS, once focused solely on cloud-first, has adjusted its strategy in recent years and embraced hybrid cloud solutions.
Google’s tool will make it that much easier for its customers to manage their hybrid cloud, and could help the company better compete in an increasingly important field.
Police are reporting that white supremacists and other fringe groups are increasingly targeting cell phone towers.
A report by the New York City Police Department, obtained by The Intercept, found that white supremacists and conspiracy theorists “increasingly target critical infrastructure to incite fear, disrupt essential services, and cause economic damage with the United States and abroad.”
In addition to the high-profile case of Anthony Quinn Warner, who bombed the AT&T building in Nashville, The Intercept also cited a case where individuals broke into a cell tower in Tennessee, cutting fiber-optic cables and destroying other equipment.
According to the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau, infrastructure sites are increasingly high-profile targets for these groups.
“In recent months, white supremacist extremists, neo-Nazis, far-right Telegram groups, and online conspiracy theorists have all emphasized attacking valuable critical infrastructure targets.”
The attacks come at a time when carriers are racing to deploy 5G and when companies and individuals are relying on internet connectivity more than ever.
“Our competitors just spent a combined $80 billion trying to catch up and match us and they fell short,” says T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. “We didn’t just leave this auction with the most mid-band spectrum, we left the auction with the best mid-band spectrum. Our two and a half gigahertz spectrum is more than 50 percent better in most use cases and we have more of it than anybody else. It’s going to make us famous for network in the 5G era.”
Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile, says that despite AT&T and Verizon spending $80 billion in the c-band auction trying to catch up and match them, they fell short:
Our Competitors Spent $80 Billion To Catch Up and They Fell Short
What the c-band auction shows is the extraordinary value of what T-Mobile has. Our competitors just spent a combined $80 billion trying to catch up and match us and they fell short. They spent $80 billion dollars and are still falling short. We didn’t just leave this auction with the most mid-band spectrum, we left the auction with the best mid-band spectrum. Our two and a half gigahertz spectrum is more than 50 percent better in most use cases. Yet we have more of it than anybody else. It’s really terrific because we’ve taken it and run ahead by about two years with the best asset base in the industry. It’s going to make us famous for network in the 5G era.
As we sit here today we’re more than a million square miles ahead of AT&T and Verizon on deployment. We have more 5G geographic coverage out there than AT&T and Verizon combined. We’re also adding coverage at a record pace, at a pace no one company in this industry has ever done. We started ramping up this engine two years ago and now it’s running at pace. While our competitors just seized some assets, they didn’t catch up, but they just seized some assets that they’re going to get after, but they’re way behind.
We Will Unlock Massive Cashflow From This Business
Yesterday we announced a business plan where we demonstrated massive cash flow potential from this business with very reasonable assumptions. These are assumptions that don’t require us to catch any unicorns. We just have to go do what we’ve already demonstrated we know how to do and we’ll unlock massive cash flow potential in this business. We have everything we need to deliver that business plan right now.
Last week we announced our Work From Home solution. We just started our rollout of home broadband for business home office workers. That’s across more than 50 million of the US population and it will rapidly expand to nationwide. It’s such an exciting thing. Now, work from home workers no longer have to share the WiFiwith their kids. That’s so important.
They also don’t have to worry about security if they are enterprises, they can get their home office workers a secure connection. Later this month, as we unveiled yesterday, we’ll be announcing our consumer launch plans across a wide swath of this country with rate plans, go to market plans. etc. We’re really excited about what’s ahead in home broadband. From a timing standpoint, we’re way ahead of the other new entrants.
Starlink Is Not A Broadband Competitor
SpaceX Starlink Constellation (and other satellite broadband provider) could be a compliment or a future collaborator. Ultimately, for the core mainstream broadband connection, it’s going to come down to capacity. Those emerging technologies won’t be able to match on capacity but they’ll be really great augments for places that macro networks don’t reach. Capacity will be the game. Nobody has the ability to deliver more capacity to more places than T-Mobile.
That’s just so great. This is a company that used to be a scrappy upstart and now we’re the number two provider but with demonstrably the best asset base in this industry.
T-Mobile CEO: Our Competitors Spent $80 Billion To Catch Up and They Fell Short
Cisco has completed its acquisition of Acacia, closing a $4.5 billion deal that faced legal hurdles just months ago.
Acacia Communications makes optical interconnect technologies that helps companies deliver faster network performance, cloud services and distributed resources. Acacia’s technology compliments Cisco’s own tech, and will help the company continue to evolve.
In early January, Acacia tried to terminate its merger agreement with Cisco, citing a failure to meet various regulatory requirements. Cisco fought back, claiming all requirements had been met, and sued to keep the deal alive.
Despite the lover’s quarrel, it appears the two companies have made up…or at least come to terms. Oracle has announced it has closed the deal.
“We are thrilled to welcome the Acacia team to Cisco,” said Chuck Robbins, Cisco chairman and CEO. “Our Internet for the Future strategy puts Acacia’s high-speed coherent optics technologies front and center as we work to empower webscale companies, service providers and data center operators to meet today’s fast-growing demands for data.”
While the deal was originally valued at $2.6 billion, the final price comes to a total of “$115.00 per share in cash, or approximately $4.5 billion on a fully diluted basis, net of cash and marketable securities.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has established a task force to revamp the agency’s broadband mapping tools.
The FCC is responsible for mapping broadband access to provide a complete picture of broadband availability. The data is important to help the FCC close the “digital divide” between those who have quality internet access and those that don’t. In the age of the pandemic and remote work, this data is more important than ever. Unfortunately, the FCC’s current mapping is out-of-date and, in many cases, not accurate.
The Broadband Data Task Force will be chaired by Jean Kiddoo, and will work to modernize the FCC’s tools.
“The Broadband Data Task Force will lead a cross-agency effort to collect detailed data and develop more precise maps about broadband availability,” said Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel. “I thank Jean and her team for their willingness to take on this vitally important project.”
“I am honored that Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel has asked me to lead this momentous and multifaceted Commission initiative,” remarked Ms. Kiddoo, who will also continue to serve as Chair of the Incentive Auction Task Force.
Updated mapping tools and information will help the FCC direct the necessary resources and efforts where they are needed most.
Ericsson has reported its quarterly results, beating forecasts on increasing 5G demand.
Ericsson is one of the main network equipment providers, and has been a leader in the 5G rollout around the world. The company is in a strong position, with Huawei being banned by multiple countries, and Nokia facing challenges in its efforts to be competitive.
In its quarterly results, Ericsson reported 69.6 billion Swedish crowns, surpassing estimates of 68.35 billion crowns. In addition, the company’s gross margin increased to 40.6%, up from 36.8% a year ago.
“Networks sales grew organically by 20%, reporting a gross margin of 43.5% (41.1%) for Q4,” said Börje Ekholm, President and CEO. “This reflects continued high activity levels in North America and North East Asia, and also in Europe where we further increased market share. Networks delivered an operating margin of 19% for full-year 2020 – well above the 15%-17% target. Investing in R&D is fundamental to our strategy. Since 2017 we have increased R&D investment by SEK 10 b. and delivered SEK 16 b. of improved operating income. Our growth during 2020 is built on a strong and competitive 5G portfolio.”
While the company warned there may be exposure as a result of Sweden’s decision to exclude Huawei from its 5G network. China has never been shy about warning of retaliation against countries that exclude Huawei. Nonetheless, the company’s 180 markets should help insulate it.
A large portion of the East Coast, from D.C. to Boston, was hit with an outage Tuesday and the FCC plans to find out why.
Around 11:00 AM Tuesday, users of multiple companies began reporting outages along the East Coast. Verizon soon announced a fiber line had been cut in Brooklyn. While the company did not say that was responsible for the widespread outage, it no doubt played a significant role. Unfortunately, however, details are still hard to come by.
Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wants the FCC to get to the bottom of the issue, especially given the widespread impact on remote workers.
We have seen reports of internet-related outages on the East Coast, making it difficult for people to work remotely and go to school online. The @FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is working to get to the bottom of what is going on.
A major outage is impacting customers on the East Coast, with some of the most critical companies being affected.
Users of Google, Slack, Verizon, Zoom, AWS and others began reporting issues around 11:00 AM Tuesday. According to DownDetector, the issues seem to be localized to an area ranging from Washington, D.C. up the cost to Boston.
Replying to one customer on Twitter, Verizon seemed to indicate the issue was the result of a fiber line being cut in Brooklyn, NY.
As Verizon says, there is no estimated time for repair. Needless to say, in the meantime, the issue is wreaking havoc on remote workers and schoolchildren.
Cisco has sued Acacia to keep its $2.6 billion acquisition deal alive after Acacia tried to back out.
Cisco announced in July 2019 that it was purchasing Acacia for $2.6 billion. Acacia makes optical components that would aid Cisco in its efforts to gain a meaningful share of the 5G network market. Since the announcement, the two companies have been working through the regulatory hurdles necessary for the acquisition to proceed. Acacia, however, is using one of those regulatory hurdles as a reason to try to back out.
According to a company statement, Acacia is terminating the merger agreement because it did not receive approval from a Chinese agency in time.
Because approval of the Chinese government’s State Administration for Market Regulation was not received within the timeframe contemplated by the merger agreement, Acacia did not have an obligation to close the merger before the arrival of the January 8, 2021 extended end date. As such, Acacia exercised its right to terminate the proposed transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.
Cisco has challenged Acacia’s stand, claiming that all conditions have been met, including approval from China’s regulator. Cisco applied for a court mandate prohibiting any termination of the merger agreement until a court could weigh in. Cisco was granted the order on Friday.
At this point, it remains to be seen how the merger will play out, but it appears any resolution may not be as amicable as hoped.
Microsoft has revealed that hackers viewed some of its source code as part of the SolarWinds attack that government agencies are still investigating.
The SolarWinds attack is one of the most devastating cyberattacks perpetrated against US companies and government agencies. Believed to be the work of Russian hackers, the attack was a supply chain attack, compromising SolarWind’s Orion IT monitoring and management software.
As one of the organizations impacted, Microsoft has now revealed the hackers viewed some of its source code, but did not make any modifications.
We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories. The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made. These accounts were investigated and remediated.
Microsoft is not concerned about the source code being viewed, since the company’s security protocols assume its source is being viewed by outside elements.
At Microsoft, we have an inner source approach – the use of open source software development best practices and an open source-like culture – to making source code viewable within Microsoft. This means we do not rely on the secrecy of source code for the security of products, and our threat models assume that attackers have knowledge of source code. So viewing source code isn’t tied to elevation of risk.
As with many companies, we plan our security with an “assume breach” philosophy and layer in defense-in-depth protections and controls to stop attackers sooner when they do gain access.
Although Microsoft seems to be containing any damage adequately, the degree to which the attackers compromised one of the biggest tech companies in the world is further evidence just how successful the SolarWinds attack was.
