October 8, 2021
Security: A Devastating Twitch Hack Sends Streamers Reeling
WIRED
THIS MORNING, AN anonymous hacker released what they claim is an enormous cache of proprietary data from Twitch, the popular streaming platform, including Twitch.tv source code and streamers’ revenue information.

“Jeff Bezos paid $970 million for this, we’re giving it away FOR FREE,” wrote the poster on 4chan. Today’s leak, which its original poster described as “extremely poggers,” is by far the biggest to ever hit Twitch, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014. The leak, first reported by Video Games Chronicle, reportedly contains 125 GB of data. Read more
Healthcare IT: How Digital Therapeutics Can Go Mainstream in Fragmented U.S. Healthcare
MobiHealthNews
Over the last decade, digital therapeutics have been gaining steam. In part, this shift is aided by the adoption of connected medical tools during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing push toward more of a hybrid care model. However, the technologies have largely not yet hit the mainstream market.

Today, industry players are looking to get stakeholders from the provider, payer and life science industries onboard. Read More
Homeland Security: Critical Infrastructure Sectors and DHS Must Prepare More for Biothreats, Report Warns
Homeland Security Today
A critical infrastructure biodefense program should be established at the Department of Homeland Security as “biological events could destroy, incapacitate, and disrupt critical infrastructure and prevent our society from both functioning properly and protecting itself,” says a new report from the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense.

The commission, chaired by former Sen. Joe Liebermann (I-Conn.) and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, noted in its report “Insidious Scourge: Critical Infrastructure at Biological Risk” that when the 2001 anthrax attacks occurred “critical infrastructure sectors were caught unaware and unprepared,” with sectors adversely impacted including commercial facilities, emergency services, critical manufacturing, energy, the defense industrial base, transportation, government facilities, healthcare, and even the chemical sector as demand for antibiotics Ciprofloxacin and Doxycycline skyrocketed. Read More
Transportation: Uber Will Now Track Your Flight and Wait for You at the Airport
Washington Post
Uber is introducing options meant to ease airport-pickup headaches. For travelers who reserve rides in advance, a choice now available at two dozen U.S. airports, the app will keep track of flight information and automatically update reservations if a plane is early or delayed. Drivers will also wait up to an hour if passengers aren’t ready to go straight to their vehicle after landing.

The features come as Uber expands its advance-reservation options, which did not include rides from airports when its Uber Reserve system debuted last year. Read More
Human Resources: Remote Work is Enabling a Silicon Valley Exodus
HR Dive
Of all the industries that have embraced remote work, perhaps none have done so more rapidly and enthusiastically than the tech sector.

Digital product companies InVision and Automattic were remote for years before the pandemic struck. Project management software company Basecamp literally wrote the book on remote work, having operated as such for more than 20 years. And as companies around the world set and reset their return-to-work dates, Twitter, Spotify and others announced remote work would be available permanently for employees who preferred it. That has translated to a whole lot of empty buildings in downtown San Francisco. Read More
Business & Technology: Exclusive Survey: CIOs Outline Tech Priorities for 2021-22
CIO
It’s a challenging time for IT leaders helping build businesses back better, with some of their biggest challenges being finding the workers, skills, and budget to deal with the workload.

That, at least, is what IDG Research found in its just-published study of CIO Technology Priorities. The study, conducted in May 2021, asked IT leaders in a range of industries about the challenges they faced and how their investment priorities have shifted as they prepare for what we now see as the new normal. Read More