News Corp to lay off 5% of staff / Russia cuts oil output / Adidas to lose $1.3B in sales from Yeezy fallout

Plus, Russia blames the U.S. for Nord Stream pipeline destruction.

Inside.com Part of   Network February 10, 2023

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. plans to lay off about 5% of its workforce, or about 1,250 workers. News Corp.’s media brands include The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and the New York Post. More: News Corp. said that the current macroeconomic environment and higher interest rates have been hurting the company. On Thursday, the company reported a 7% decrease in its Q2 FY2023 revenue. Net income fell to $94M from $262M reported during the same period last year. Last month, Murdoch canceled the planned remerger of his two media empires, News Corp. and Fox Corp, citing the combination was not optimal for shareholders. News Corp. is in talks with commercial real estate company CoStar Group to sell its stake in Move Inc., the parent company of Realtor.com.

Adidas shares fell ~1% on Friday after the sportswear manufacturer said it could lose about €‎1.2B ($1.3B) in revenue in 2023 if it is unable to sell its existing Yeezy items. Adidas ended its partnership with Yeezy founder Kanye West in October after the rapper and fashion designer made some antisemitic comments. More: Adidas said it is assessing what to do with its current Yeezy inventory. The company added it has already accounted for the impact of not selling it. Adidas said its profit would drop by about €500M if the company can’t sell the products. According to Morgan Stanley, Yeezy products generated about $2B in sales for Adidas in 2021, accounting for about 8% of the company’s total sales. Adidas began its collaboration with West in February 2015.

Russia plans to cut its oil production by 5% or 500,000 barrels per day in March. The move comes following additional Western sanctions on Russian crude and oil products that went into effect in December and February. More: The EU implemented its ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude on Dec. 5 and oil products this week. Following news of the production cut, the price of international benchmark Brent Crude rose 2.24% to $86.39 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate rose 2.13% to $79.72 a barrel. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who announced the production cut, said the reduction would help restore market relations. Novak said the cut does not apply to liquified natural gas and would be calculated from actual output levels and not from Russia’s quota under OPEC.

Lyft shares fell more than 36% on Friday after the ride-hailing company posted weaker-than-expected Q4 and full-year 2022 earnings on Thursday. Lyft reported $1.2B in Q4 revenue, up 21% YoY and up 12% from the previous quarter. The company posted a net loss of $588.1M compared to a net loss of $283.2M reported in Q4 2021. More: Full-year 2022 revenue was $4.1B, up 28% YoY, and net loss widened to $1.6B from $1.1B reported in 2021. In November, Lyft announced it was laying off about 13% of its workforce, or about 700 people, in a bid to cut operational costs. Lyft said it expects Q1 2023 revenue of about $975M. Lyft shares closed at $10.31 on Friday; the company is down ~7% YTD.

Redwood Materials has received a $2B loan commitment from the Department of Energy to help build out its battery recycling facility in Nevada. Redwood Materials takes end-of-life EV batteries and production scraps from car factories and turns them into raw materials and components to make new EV battery cells. More: The company was founded in 2017 by Tesla’s former CTO, J.B. Straubel. Straubel left Tesla in 2019 to work on Redwood Materials full-time. Jigar Shah, director of the DOE’s Loan Programs, said the U.S. needed to expand its battery recycling capabilities to meet the demand of the growing EV market. The loan is from the department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. The same program helped Tesla get its start. Redwood aims to help with the production of more than 1 million EVs per year.

General Motors has signed a long-term agreement with GlobalFoundries for U.S.-made semiconductor chips. The move comes as automakers have struggled to get chips for their vehicles amid broader supply chain issues. More: As part of the deal, GlobalFoundries will establish a dedicated production capacity exclusively for GM’s suppliers. According to both companies, the agreement is a first of its kind in the auto industry. In a statement, GM said the agreement would provide a resilient supply of critical technology in the U.S. and help GM meet its demand. GM expects its use of semiconductors to more than double in the next several years. The agreement would expand GlobalFoundries’ production capacity and, according to GlobalFoundries CEO Thomas Caulfield, would take two to three years to ramp up.

Quick Hits Verifying users online is a challenge. Discover how to deliver an identity verification process that balances fraud prevention with user experience.* Russia has blamed the U.S. for the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines and threatened to retaliate. This comes after an American investigative journalist alleged the Biden administration had attacked the pipeline. The U.S. has sanctioned six Chinese aerospace companies believed to be supporting China’s military’s reconnaissance balloon program. The Pentagon said it shot down a second high-altitude object in U.S. airspace off the coast of Alaska on Friday. The mission occurred days after a Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina. Florida lawmakers have approved legislation that changes Disney’s Reedy Creek special governing district. Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law.  Building startups is hard; securing them can be confusing. Watch this demo and see how you can be compliant quickly.* *This is a sponsored listing.

Upcoming Events February 13 - Inside Marketing Coffee Break (Register Here) February 14 - Inside Startups Coffee Break (Register Here) February 16 - Inside Marketing w/ Kate Chernis (Lately) (Register Here) March 01 - Webinar on the changing privacy landscape in the US by Vanta and Osano (Register Here) * March 02 - AI Quality Workshop: Driving ML Performance and Trustworthiness (Register Here) * April 18 - Human Resources Summit'23 (Register Here) *This is a sponsored listing.

Vanessa Omeokachie is a writer for Inside.com; she writes the daily Inside Business newsletter. Her interests include finance, technology, and entrepreneurship. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending concerts and music festivals, traveling, and exploring.  Connect with her on Twitter @VanessaOmeo or on LinkedIn. Editor Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords.

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TOR network being attacked / U.S. warns of North Korean hackers / NIST announces new IoT devices encryption algorithm

Plus: Coincover raises $30M to help protect crypto assets from being breached

Inside.com Part of   Network February 10, 2023

Presented by

TOR users are reporting connectivity issues due to a number of DDoS attacks that have hit the TOR network. These attacks have been ongoing for the last seven months. More: TOR representatives have stated that they will continue to monitor the situation and will make changes to the network so that it can withstand the long hacking campaign. This hacking campaign has slowed down TOR for some users, something the browser has struggled with in the past, even without being cyberattacked. While the threat actors responsible for the breach have not been tracked, researchers believe that the hackers are using a variety of different tools that change multiple times per day. Zoom Out: Tor is an open-source browser that enables users to browse the web more anonymously. The technology has received both praises for its role in becoming a tool that democratized internet use, as well as criticism revolving around its privacy practices that have allowed people with criminal backgrounds to have a platform for themselves.

The U.S. has warned of imminent North Korean cyberattacks that may target key sectors in the country. CISA made an official statement on the risk that may come from these campaigns. More: In a joint statement with CISA, the NSA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Republic of Korea (ROK) National Intelligence Service, and the ROK Defense Security Agency have warned that North Korean hackers may soon launch a hacking campaign against several the most important actors in the U.S.  This announcement is part of the #StopRansomware campaign. The agencies have provided several mitigations for the attacking campaign, such as:  limiting access to data by authenticating and encrypting connections, utilizing concepts of least privilege in accounts, and creating multi-layer defenses for networks and assets.

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology announced a new encryption algorithm that will be used to protect small IoT devices. The algorithm was chosen as the winner in a competition held by NIST. More: This algorithm is called Ascon. Ascon is a family of authenticated encryption and hashing algorithms designed to be lightweight and easy to implement. Its main features are: Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data, hashing, single lightweight permutation, Sponge-based modes of operation with a custom-tailored SPN permutation, Easy to implement in software and hardware, Lightweight for constrained devices: small state, simple permutation, robust mode, Fast in hardware, etc. Ascon was designed by a team of cryptographers from Graz University of Technology, Infineon Technologies, Lamarr Security Research, and Radboud University.

Coincover has raised $30M to help protect crypto assets from being breached. Foundation Capital led the funding round. More: The company helps with monitoring and analysis systems, identifying suspicious transactions, cyber insurance coverage, etc. Coincover states that its platform helps companies not only avoid being breached but offers them solutions that can be implemented if they are breached at any time. Since its inception in 2018, the company has raised $41.6M, according to company officials. Coincover has over 300 clients. Coincover aims to use this funding round to expand its team and develop its product.

Clearsense has raised a $50M Series D funding round to provide advanced and secure data analytics for the healthcare industry. The company claims it helps clients save hundreds of millions in costs annually. More: Clearsense offers a data analytics healthcare platform that enables its clients to make better management decisions regarding finances and HR. The platform enables clients to store data safely. Its product helps in specialized analytics that deal with: Disease registries, Population health, ​​​​​​Research, etc. ​The company claims it has over 400 clients that save more than $100M in costs annually by using its platform. This funding round was led by Healthquest Capital. The company is based in Jacksonville, Florida.

Quick Hits: Verifying users online is a challenge. Discover how to deliver an identity verification process that balances fraud prevention with user experience.* Several California residents have had their inflation relief funds stolen and may have to pay taxes on the money they didn't get, according to a report. Reddit has confirmed that it was breached earlier today. The breach is believed to have happened as a result of an employee clicking on phishing links. A report claims that a hacker took advantage of the 15-day waiting period that Valve took to fix security patches by uploading malicious code in several company files. Building startups is hard; securing them can be confusing. Watch this demo and see how you can be compliant quickly.* *This is sponsored content.

Upcoming events at Inside: February 13 - Inside Marketing Coffee Break (Register Here) February 14 - Inside Startups Coffee Break (Register Here) February 16 - Inside Marketing w/ Kate Chernis (Lately) (Register Here) March 01 - Webinar on the changing privacy landscape in the US by Vanta and Osano (Register Here) * March 02 - AI Quality Workshop: Driving ML Performance and Trustworthiness (Register Here) * April 18 - Human Resources Summit'23 (Register Here) *This is a sponsored listing.

Arbër is an Inside writer who also has experience in entrepreneurship. He has experience covering Consumer Tech, Venture Capital, NFTs, Crypto, etc. Arbër holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from XAMK University in Finland. When he is not reading(and writing) business news, he chooses to watch sports or anime...and then read news about sports or anime. Editor Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords.

Fingerprint is the premier device identity platform for high-scale applications.

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