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ZERO TO $1M: WINNING EARLY GTM (EVENT)

This one-day event is a unique opportunity for early-stage founders (idea, pre-seed, or seed) to learn how to win big by jumpstarting their revenue engines from day one.

PNGMAKER.IO

Convert text to PNG with transparent backgrounds.

NIMBLE API

Nimble streamlines web data-gathering pipelines, for any business need, at any scale.

INTERVIEWING META CTO ANDREW BOSWORTH ON THE METAVERSE

Andrew Bosworth of Meta discusses VR's evolution and the Quest's success as a standalone headset, highlighting AI's role in Meta's innovative future. Meta faced a lot of challenges on the way and still does, like producing great content, costs, and therefore limited accessibility for your everyday consumer. Its ongoing significant investments show confidence that the company truly believes in VR/AR's mainstream potential – it's just going to take some time, but then it'll likely happen all at once.

HOW AI AGENTS WILL CHANGE SOFTWARE PRICING

As AI agents become increasingly productive, software companies may need to reevaluate their pricing models, considering alternatives such as tripling per-seat prices, adopting usage-based pricing, or charging based on performance outcomes. These new pricing strategies could provide opportunities for startups to disrupt incumbents, similar to how Salesforce challenged the perpetual license model with its seat-based approach.

HOW TO HELP UNDERPERFORMERS

This guide offers a nuanced approach to managing underperformers, emphasizing early intervention and gradual escalation. The "Accountability Dial" framework provides a structured way to address issues, from gentle mentions to more serious conversations. For founders and managers, it highlights the importance of clear expectations, consistent feedback, and a balance between accountability and support.

GIVING UP VS. QUITTING

Apathy and complacency can lead to stagnation and missed opportunities.

BAY AREA STILL DOMINATES EARLY-STAGE STARTUP FUNDING

Early-stage startup funding in the US is still dominated by the Bay Area, which accounts for over 30% of invested capital.

THE LAST $250K

Companies usually experience a pronounced change in behavior and execution when they are down to their last $250,000 in the bank.

🆕🆓 Start securing your open source for free today

GITLAB SENDS USERS SCRAMBLING AGAIN WITH NEW CI/CD PIPELINE TAKEOVER VULN

GitLab has disclosed a critical vulnerability (CVE-2024-6385) that affects its DevOps platform's CI/CD pipelines. The flaw, rated 9.6 out of 10 in severity, allows attackers to run pipelines as any user, potentially accessing sensitive data and injecting malicious code. GitLab strongly urges users to upgrade immediately to the latest patched version.

NEARLY ALL AT&T SUBSCRIBERS' CALL RECORDS STOLEN IN SNOWFLAKE CLOUD HACK

AT&T reported a data breach affecting nearly all its cellular customers, exposing call and text records. The breach, linked to the Snowflake attack, leaked phone numbers but not names or message content. AT&T is working with law enforcement and notifying affected customers, offering access to compromised data details.

EXIM VULNERABILITY AFFECTING 1.5M SERVERS LETS ATTACKERS ATTACH MALICIOUS FILES

A new vulnerability with a CVSS score of 9.1 allows attackers to bypass attachment extension blocking and deliver executables to victims has been discovered. The vulnerability stems from an error in the way Exim parses multiline headers. Researchers have found that more than 1.5M email servers run vulnerable versions of Exim.

UNMASKING THE DIGITAL BATTLEFIELD: HOW CYBER WARFARE IS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL CONFLICT AND SECURITY

The digital age has transformed international conflict, with cyber warfare emerging as a new paradigm. Data has become a weapon, reshaping how nations exert power and protect sovereignty in the global arena. This blog post dives into this transformation and what is coming next.

MOONWALK: A DEEP DIVE INTO THE UPDATED ARSENAL OF APT41 | PART 2

The Moonwalk malware has a modular design allowing for flexibility in functionality. It communicates through Google Drive and uses encryption for security. MoonWalk evades detection by using Windows Fibers and obfuscating its origins.

PASSWORD BREAKING A TO Z

This comprehensive guide on password cracking and what it takes to build a password cracking workstation contains FAQs and links to previous posts on the topic. The guide notes that using GPUs can significantly speed up password cracking compared to using CPUs alone, but some algorithms may require a combination of GPU and CPU for efficient attacks. Building an efficient password recovery workstation involves considering power consumption, cooling solutions, and the type of attacks needed for different encryption formats.

TRACEBIT (PRODUCT LAUNCH)

Tracebit creates tailored canaries (fake honeypots) across cloud environments to lure threats, increase detection rates, accelerate responses, and reduce costs.

GAPCAST

Gapcast is an IEEE 802.11 packet injection and analyzer software.

ANNOUNCING AES-GEM (AES WITH GALOIS EXTENDED MODE)

AES-GEM is a new encryption method that improves AES-GCM's security weaknesses. It offers AES-128-GEM and AES-256-GEM variants with enhanced key lengths and performance. While not ready for production yet, AES-GEM minimizes vulnerabilities and enhances encryption capabilities.

CISA BROKE INTO A US FEDERAL AGENCY, AND NO ONE NOTICED FOR A FULL 5 MONTHS

CISA's 2023 red team exercise on an unnamed federal agency revealed significant security vulnerabilities. The team exploited an unpatched Oracle Solaris vulnerability (CVE-2022-21587) to gain full access. Despite being notified, the agency took over two weeks to patch and failed to conduct a thorough investigation.

THE STARK TRUTH BEHIND THE RESURGENCE OF RUSSIA'S FIN7

Cybercrime group Fin7, responsible for billions in losses, has made a comeback in 2024 after being declared dead by U.S. authorities in 2023. It is using a hosting provider called Stark Industries Solutions to set up thousands of fake websites targeting various brands for phishing attacks. Researchers have uncovered Fin7's extensive cybercrime infrastructure and warn of its rapid expansion and malicious activities, which includes targeting tourists visiting France for the Summer Olympics.

DISNEY'S INTERNAL SLACK BREACHED? NULLBULGE LEAKS 1.1 TIB OF DATA

Hacktivist group NullBulge claims to have breached Disney's internal Slack, leaking 1.1 TiB of data, including messages, files, and code. The group aims to protect artists' rights and fair compensation. Disney has faced criticism for not paying royalties to writers and artists, with NullBulge possibly linked to the LockBit ransomware gang.

A GROUP OF R1 JAILBREAKERS FOUND A MASSIVE SECURITY FLAW IN RABBIT'S CODE

Researchers discovered API keys hardcoded in the company's codebase, putting sensitive information at risk of falling into the wrong hands.

FAKE MICROSOFT TEAMS FOR MAC DELIVERS ATOMIC STEALER

A fake Microsoft Teams ad for Mac was used in a malvertising campaign targeting Mac users to deliver the Atomic Stealer malware.

HACKERS USE POC EXPLOITS IN ATTACKS 22 MINUTES AFTER RELEASE

Hackers are quick to use PoC exploits in attacks, sometimes within 22 minutes of release.

ONE-THIRD OF CONSUMERS CUT SPENDING IN Q2: REPORT

GOOGLE AI OVERVIEWS ONLY SHOW FOR 7% OF QUERIES, A NEW LOW

Google's AI Overviews are now visible in fewer than 7% of queries, particularly dropping in education, entertainment, and e-commerce sectors. The presence of AI-generated content has been reduced due to issues with incorrect and hazardous answers, with Google focusing on enhancing accuracy and reducing reliance on user-generated content from sites like Reddit and Quora.

HOW TO SPLIT UP YOUR MARKETING BUDGET BETWEEN CREATING DEMAND VS. CAPTURING DEMAND

Two companies in the same category could have very different budget mixes for creating vs. capturing demand. Determine your total ad spend, the available demand for capture, and the size of your ICP on social channels for demand creation. Pair this data with historical CPMs to decide how much to allocate to each campaign type.

HOMEPAGE MESSAGING ZONES

This post advises against blindly using homepage copy templates and suggests structuring content around distinct "zones" for better impact. These 6 zones include positioning, credibility, problem definition, capabilities, impact, and business case. Adjust the order and emphasis and include objection handling, callouts for marquee features, and extra social proof.

HOW TO CUSTOMIZE GOOGLE ADS CONVERSION TRACKING FOR BETTER INSIGHTS

Customizing Google Ads conversion tracking involves understanding its structure, including categories like “Submit lead form” and “Sign-up.” Setting up primary conversions for key actions to optimize, such as lead form submissions and phone calls, while designating actions like page views as secondary, helps avoid skewing data. Regular updates to account default goals and leveraging campaign-specific conversion goals ensure accurate tracking and optimization tailored to each campaign.

WHAT'S A LINK IN BIO TOOL? AND WHAT SHOULD YOU LOOK FOR IN ONE?

Essential features of a good link in bio tool include customizability, ease of integration with social platforms, user-friendliness, analytics, and affordability. Popular tools include Linktree, Flodesk, Shorby, Hopp, Linkin.bio, Beacons, Campsite.bio, and ContactInBio. They allow users to personalize their link pages, track performance, and integrate e-commerce and payment processing.

FROM BOOTSTRAP TO $100M FIRST ROUND IN 8 YEARS: GRAMMARLY'S GROWTH STORY

Grammarly's marketing focused on SEO, content marketing, social media, and email in its early days. After receiving funding, it began to heavily invest in paid advertising, including branding and awareness campaigns, while also expanding its social media presence. The brand's freemium model, which creates a low-friction entry point, is a perfect example of product-led growth.

9 PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS USED IN MARKETING

Marketers use psychology to understand and convince consumers to take action. The Bandwagon Effect represents how people often follow what others do because they want to fit in with the group. Conservatism Bias is how people naturally prefer existing evidence over new evidence that might change their view on something. The Arch Enemy represents how people feel more involved in a story, event, or situation when there is a clear enemy that needs to be defeated.

UGLY ADS PERFORM BEST, MARKETER SAYS

Marketers tend to want to make prettier ads, but the first reaction, relatability, and authenticity are what really matter.

MY FAVORITE JOB INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

List of great job interview questions that go beyond the standard to uncover standout qualities in marketing candidates.

BEAM: BRIEF TEMPLATE

Beam shares the brief template it uses for every article, ebook, case study, and guide it publishes.

BUILDING AND SCALING NOTION'S DATA LAKE

As Notion grew exponentially, it had to build a scalable data lake. Its solution involves incrementally ingesting updated data from Postgres to Kafka, then using Hudi to write to S3 for processing. Spark is used for complex tasks like tree traversal and denormalization. This approach has resulted in cost savings, improved data freshness, and has unlocked new possibilities for AI and search features.

HOW WE SAVED 300MS FROM EVERY AWS POD STARTUP WITH A SINGLE GRAFANA LOKI QUERY

Checkly, a synthetic monitoring tool, reduced its pod startup time by optimizing the AWS SDK and changing the order of operations. It initially used large containers with long startup times, but switching to ephemeral pods required a faster startup. The company found that multiple versions of the AWS SDK were causing delays. Standardizing the version led to a bunch of savings in compute costs.

SPEEDING UP THE JAVASCRIPT ECOSYSTEM

TypeScript's new isolated declarations feature simplifies code packaging by automatically generating .d.ts files. This improves the "go to source" functionality and also removes the need to manually create these files. It makes publishing packages faster by shifting definition file generation from the publishing process to the installation process.

"GITHUB" IS STARTING TO FEEL LIKE LEGACY SOFTWARE

WORKING WITH STACKED BRANCHES IN GIT IS EASIER WITH --UPDATE-REFS

Git 2.38 introduced the --update-refs feature to streamline the process of rebasing stacked branches. This new feature automatically updates dependent branches when the base branch is rebased, eliminating the need for manual rebasing and potential conflicts. It can be used in various scenarios, including rebasing a stack of branches, updating stacked branches on a changed branch, and interactive rebasing.

Q&A

PLV8

PLV8 is a trusted Javascript language extension for PostgreSQL. It can be used for stored procedures, triggers, etc.

QUARTZ

Quartz is a set of tools that helps you publish your notes as a website for free. It converts Markdown notes into a fully functional website.

GPU.CPP

gpu.cpp is a lightweight library that makes portable GPU computation with C++ simple. It focuses on general purpose native GPU computation, using the WebGPU specification as a portable low-level GPU interface. This means developers can drop in GPU code in C++ projects and have it run on Nvidia, Intel, AMD, and other GPUs, along with a wide variety of laptops, workstations, mobile devices, and more.

WE NEED VISUAL PROGRAMMING. NO, NOT LIKE THAT

Visual programming often fails to gain traction among developers because it focuses on replacing code syntax instead of visualizing important, implicit aspects of software that developers already struggle with. Developers already use visual representations like treemaps, code retention diagrams, network topologies, and memory layouts to understand and analyze different aspects of their code and systems. These visualizations can be immensely helpful for tasks like onboarding in large codebases, diagnosing performance problems, understanding data layouts, and tracking complex client-server interactions, so there still is a lot of opportunity here for startups.

UNIVERSAL CODE EXECUTION BY CHAINING MESSAGES IN BROWSER EXTENSIONS

By chaining various messaging APIs in browsers and browser extensions, it's possible to achieve 'universal code execution', breaking Same Origin Policy and browser sandbox. This vulnerability allows malicious web pages to communicate with an extension's content script and then relay messages to the background script, which can further communicate with a native application on the host operating system. This means that the chain can execute arbitrary code on the victim's machine.