Paul Gluckman

There’s no “silver bullet” for resolving the ransomware “crisis,” Brandon Wales, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, told an Axios webinar Wednesday. There’s more the government can and should do “to help arm” U.S. businesses “with the kind of information that will allow them to protect their networks,” he said.

China was the unmentioned presence lurking among participants in the inaugural meeting Wednesday in Pittsburgh of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (see 2109290006), agreed panelists on a Center for Strategic and International Studies webinar Friday to discuss key takeaways. They agreed the meeting was a moderate success for setting in motion 10 working groups to address specific tasks before the TTC meets again in the spring.

Fifth-generation wireless continues to grow, Micron's chief told investors. Sales rose 25% in mobile in fiscal Q4 ended Sept. 2 from the year-ago quarter. “We expect overall smartphone unit sales to grow this year, with sales of over 500 million 5G mobile phones forecasted” globally, said CEO Sanjay Mehrotra Tuesday. The typical 5G smartphone features more than 50% higher DRAM content and double the NAND content of a 4G phone, he said. “We expect 5G and AI to drive new innovation in applications such as AI-optimized video capture and editing that will fuel DRAM and NAND content growth for years.”

It’s hard for contract manufacturer Jabil to answer questions about "when does the fever break” on the tech industry’s global supply chain woes, said CEO Mark Mondello on a call Wednesday for fiscal Q4 ended Aug. 31. “Does the demand start to soften a bit?” said Mondello. “Does the supply start to strengthen a bit? There’s a significant amount of variables there.” Previously unforeseen “incremental tightness” in the supply chain during July and August caused Jabil to finish its Q4 with net revenue of $7.4 billion, below the midrange of the guidance it published June 17. The stock fell 6.2% Wednesday to close at $57.23. For fiscal 2022's first half ending Feb. 28, “we’re going to still see tightness about equivalent to what we saw” in the last two months of Q4 -- “very tight supply in components,” the CEO said. Leveraging the scale of the 400 customers Jabil serves, including Apple, Dish Network, Philips and Sony, plus “just the amount of overall parts we buy," Mondello and his team think “things will start to maybe move in a better direction as we get into the back half” of FY 2022 ending in August, he said. “We’re by no means suggesting that the supply chain is back to normalized levels by the back half of the year.” But if demand trends hold, “and we’re working through this solely on the supply side, then I would think we don’t see normal conditions in the supply chain” until FY 2023's first half ending February 2023, “the way things sit today,” he said.

“If you want to stop ransomware, you need Guardicore,” said Akamai CEO Tom Leighton on an investor call Wednesday, explaining the company’s rationale for buying the “micro-segmentation” cybersecurity systems provider. It's paying $600 million cash, said Akamai Chief Financial Officer Ed McGowan. The transaction is expected to close in Q4. Enterprises are confronting “a rapidly evolving threat landscape, with sophisticated attackers who are trying to steal their data, disrupt their operations and extort them for large sums,” said Leighton. “Recent growth of ransomware and other malware-based attacks is explosive,” he said, citing estimates that ransomware-infected devices jumped “35-fold” last year. Attack costs are expected to exceed $20 billion globally this year, he said. Leighton knows of Illumio as Guardicore’s only direct competitor, he said. Akamai/Guardicore "further underscores the critical need" for zero trust micro-segmentation "as a core component of an organization’s cybersecurity strategy," emailed Illumio CEO Andrew Rubin. "Akamai is the latest company to react to customers’ recognition of the vital role" that micro-segmentation plays in improving an organization's "security posture, increasing cyber-resiliency and preventing cyber catastrophes," he said. "The need for a new approach to cybersecurity has been reinforced by the barrage of ransomware attacks we have witnessed over the past 12 months."

U.S. District Court in Waco, Texas, rightly denied Intel and Samsung motions to transfer the patent infringement cases in which they are defendants to the Northern District of California, ruled the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit Monday. R&D company Demaray sued Intel and Samsung in Waco for infringing two patents on use of semiconductor fab reactors. In denying the transfer motions July 1, the Waco court ruled that neither company “had established that the Northern District of California was a clearly more convenient forum than the Western District of Texas, the plaintiff’s chosen forum,” said the appeals court. “Intel and Samsung have not shown a clear and indisputable right to transfer,” it said. “Mindful of the standard of review, we are not prepared to second-guess the district court’s findings.” Neither manufacturer commented now.

Leaders of Quad countries Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. ended their summit in Washington with the commitment to “fostering an open, accessible, and secure technology ecosystem, based on mutual trust and confidence,” said the White House Friday. Design, development, governance and use of technology “should be an equitable and inclusive process that neither involves nor results in unfair discriminatory action,” it said. “Technology should not be misused or abused for malicious activities such as authoritarian surveillance and oppression, for terrorist purposes, or to disseminate disinformation.” The countries agree that “resilient, diverse, and secure technology supply chains” for hardware, software and services “are vital to our shared national interests,” it said. “Close cooperation on supply chains with allies and partners who share our values will enhance our security and prosperity, and strengthen our capacity to respond to international disasters and emergencies,” said the statement. “We welcome all nations to join us in pursuit of this shared vision for technologies.” China gave strong indications Monday it won't accept the invitation anytime soon. "Relevant countries should abandon the outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and ideological bias, stop forming closed and exclusive cliques and do more to promote solidarity and cooperation," said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson.

Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou flew home to China Friday, released from custody in Canada, said a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Saturday. The case was "an incident of political persecution against a Chinese citizen, an act designed to hobble Chinese high-tech companies," said the spokesperson. Charges against her were "purely fabricated," she said. The spokesperson said Monday, "The party and the Chinese government have the firm will and strong capability to firmly uphold the legitimate and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens and companies." The U.S. agreed to dismiss its indictment against Meng at the four-year anniversary of her December 2018 arrest in Vancouver (see 1901280052) if she complies with a deferred prosecution agreement she reached Wednesday with the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, said DOJ Friday. Meng admits to defrauding "global financial institutions" by lying about Huawei’s ownership in its Iranian affiliate Skycom. “There is no link” between DOJ’s resolution of the Meng case and the Chinese government’s release of two Canadian citizens detained in the country, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. “We have an independent Justice Department, we can’t determine how the Chinese or others manage their business over there,” Psaki said. “We have made no secret" about the U.S. push to get Canadians detained in China released, she said. "That’s certainly positive news.” DOJ didn't respond to our follow-up questions Monday.

This pandemic brought “this dramatic acceleration of people moving to a digital lifestyle,” PayPal CEO Dan Schulman told a J.P. Morgan investor conference virtually Thursday. How people work, play, pay and consume their entertainment -- “all of that is moving to the mobile phone,” and people “are staying there at elevated levels,” he said. The new smartphone “super app” that PayPal launched days ago, featuring a new two-day “early access” direct deposit component, was a “substantial upgrade to where we were from a consumer perspective,” he said. But it’s only the first “iteration” of an app PayPal plans to improve with each passing quarter, he said. Any company like PayPal that wants to be “a major financial services player” needs to be “world-class at regulatory compliance,” said Schulman. “We operate in 200 different jurisdictions around the world,” under 67 “different regulatory frameworks,” he said. It has “great engaged relationships with all the regulators,” he said. “If there are emerging fintechs who think they can play outside the regulatory boundaries, they're wrong.”

Semiconductors are “a hot topic these days,” said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger at the groundbreaking ceremony Friday of two new fabs Intel is building in Chandler, Arizona -- a site he dubbed the “Silicon Desert.” The industry is enduring a demand-supply gap, and the global shortage “is causing chips to halt and slow production of many other areas of the economy,” he said.