Business & Tech News
X Cyber Attack
Late yesterday saw a cyber-attack launched against both social media platform X and Tesla motors, in what appears to be a co-ordinated attempt to attack Elon Musk owned businesses. Musk in a post on X stated that “We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Users around various regions, including the US the UK, Europe and in Africa and India were unable to access their X accounts or get updates on posts for some time.
On an interview on Fox News, Musk later claimed that they had traced the cyber attack back to a server address in the Ukraine. There were several major outages spanning more than six hours on Monday and is amongst the longest X outages ever encountered. The pattern of the attack was consistent with a denial of service attack targeting X’s infrastructure at scale. A distributed denial of service or DDoS attack, is an attempt by bad actors to take a website offline by overwhelming it with internet traffic.
IBM Wins Software Breach Case:
In a legal battle on Software licensing, IBM has proved its case and won a large lawsuit against U.S. tech entrepreneur and philanthropist John Moores’ company LzLabs. IBM had accused LzLabs of industrial espionage and the theft of its trade secrets. IBM sued Switzerland-based LzLabs at the UK High Court. The case included two of LzLabs English subsidiaries and their ultimate owner Moores in the defendants. Moores was the founder of IT company BMC Software in 1980.
The case stated that LzLabs’ UK subsidiary Winsopia purchased an IBM mainframe computer and agreed a license with IBM in 2013, before using the access to reverse-engineer IBM’s mainframe software but LzLabs had countered that they had developed their own software with no unlawful use of IBM’s proprietary software. The High Court however ruled in IBM’s favour, with Judge Finola O’Farrell saying that Winsopia breached the terms of its IBM software licence and that “LzLabs and Mr Moores unlawfully procured the breaches.”
OpenAI Backing Motorsport Team
IndyCar racing team – Chip Ganassi Racing, has announced a strategic research collaboration with OpenA. The partnership is the first ever to bring in a partner from the artificial intelligence tech field and OpenAI’s first collaboration in motorsports. Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI said in an interview that “Racing has always been a proving ground for innovation, and we’re excited to explore how our AI technology can contribute alongside the incredible talent at Chip Ganassi Racing,” he commented. “IndyCar is a sport where every detail counts, and we’re eager to see how advanced technology can support the team’s expertise in pushing performance forward.”
Ganassi’s motor racing team has plans to utilize OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technology in analysing the massive data sets accumulated from racing cars and to use AI to maximize performance on the racetrack and in the front office by using the company’s software engineering and research capabilities.
PRASA Tender Irregularities Revealed
According to a Groundup report, Senior officials at South Africa’s Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) have allowed two tenders amounting to almost R18-billion to be awarded to a company, without the basic bid criteria for state owned enterprise tender and procurement procedures being met. A report compiled by a whistle-blower alledges that Prasa also fraudulently made illegal advance payments to the company, Maziya General Services, to the value of around R2.7-billion, via a process of five money transfers, over the period of a year between December 2023 and December 2024. The allegations are related to two tenders awarded to Maziya General Services for a “global system for mobile communications-railway redundancy network” in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Western Cape (Bid 112), and a “Prasa train control system” in KwaZulu-Natal (Bid 120), that were according to the report, for the amounts of R6.3-billion and R11.1-billion (ZAR).
Publicly accessible records show both tenders were awarded to Maziya, which is owned by Christiaan Delport. But according to bid documents in the whistle-blower report, the tenders should have been awarded to joint venture companies CRIG Maziya JV and MACRE JV.
Markets by Numbers
Currencies:
Currency markets are indicating the US Dollar trading level and currently at 1.08380 against the Euro, and at 1.28760 against the Pound, and at 147.23 Yen to the dollar currently. The rand has lost some ground to the Dollar, and is trading at R18.33 against the dollar currently.
Commodities:
- Gold prices have remained below the $2900 level, and trading at $2,895,97 currently.
- Copper is trading around -0,5% lower, and at 4.6151 currently.
- Silver is edging higher this morning, and at 32.090 currently.
- Platinum prices are at $955.30 currently, while Palladium prices are currently trading at $930.00
- Brent Crude Oil prices have dropped below the $70 mark, and is trading at $69.28 currently, with WTI also trading lower at $65.86 currently.
- Cocoa futures have gained more than 1,2% this morning, with prices currently at $8159.89 per ton.
- Coffee prices have remained below the $400 mark, but trading upwards and at $394.94 currently.
Crypto Currencies:
- Bitcoin crashed to as low as $76 700 this morning but has since seen a recovery to around $80 000 and is currently trading at $80364.
- Ether prices are also recovering from a large overnight crash that saw the coin move below $2000 and currently trading at $1898.37
- $Trumpcoin has seen initial downward movement today, to below the $10.00 level but is currently trading at $10.87
(All prices quoted at approximately 08H20 – Central African Time)
Other News in Africa Today
Sudan Peace in The Balance:
The U.S. State Department has ordered non-emergency government personnel to leave South Sudan’s capital as tension escalates because of fighting in the north. The travel advisory issued on Sunday stated that fighting was ongoing and that “weapons are readily available to the population.” An armed group clashed with the country’s army on Tuesday, leading to the arrests of two government ministers and a deputy army chief allied to former rebel turned Vice President Riek Machar.The army surrounded Machar’s home as his supporters said that the arrests were threatening the country’s peace agreement.
South Sudan descended into a civil war from 2013 to 2018, during which more than 400,000 people were killed. President Salva Kiir and Machar, his rival, signed a peace agreement in 2018 that is still in the process of implementation. The U.N Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan on Saturday said that the violence in the north and tension in Juba, the capital, was “threatening to derail” South Sudan’s peace agreement.
Electronic Election Voting Possibility in SA Discussed:
The South African election authority, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has discussed the possibility and viability of electronic voting at a three-day conference it is hosting in Cape Town. The IEC says this will alter the way citizens cast their vote, however it may still be some time before it can be properly implemented. There are major issues around identity confirmation and the security measures required that create technological hurdles. Cybersecurity, the availability of connectivity and accessibility to technology are among the top concerns raised.However, the IEC says no one will be left behind during the development and rolling out of the system. There have been other countries in Africa that have attempted to implement electronic voting but have failed to achieve the goal.
