Month: March 2023
‘One In Two New Npm Packages Is SEO Spam Right Now’
Gabi Dobocan, writing at auditing firm Sandworm: More than half of all new packages that are currently (29 Mar 2023) being submitted to npm are SEO spam. That is – empty packages, with just a single README file that contains links to various malicious websites. Out of the ~320k new npm packages or versions that Sandworm has scanned over the past week, at least ~185k were labeled as SEO spam. Just in the last hour as of writing this article, 1583 new e-book spam packages have been published. All the identified spam packages are currently live on npmjs.com.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Gabi Dobocan, writing at auditing firm Sandworm: More than half of all new packages that are currently (29 Mar 2023) being submitted to npm are SEO spam. That is – empty packages, with just a single README file that contains links to various malicious websites. Out of the ~320k new npm packages or versions that Sandworm has scanned over the past week, at least ~185k were labeled as SEO spam. Just in the last hour as of writing this article, 1583 new e-book spam packages have been published. All the identified spam packages are currently live on npmjs.com.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Pitch Deck Teardown: Northspyre’s $25 million Series B deck
Northspyre shared the deck it used to raise a $25 million Series B to bring costs under control for big building projects.
Pitch Deck Teardown: Northspyre’s $25 million Series B deck by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch
Back in February, Northspyre announced it had raised $25 million to bring costs under control for big building projects. (TechCrunch’s Mary Ann Azevedo mentioned the fundraise in her fintech newsletter.)
It’s a huge industry with powerful potential — so how does a company like that tell the story of what it’s building? We’re lucky enough to be able to share Northspyre’s pitch deck with you today. Get the crowbar; let’s break this thing open to see what’s inside.
We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to tear down, so if you want to submit your own, here’s how you can do that.
Slides in this deck
The company tells me it removed a few of the most financially sensitive slides from the deck before sharing it with us; what is left behind is a spectacularly well-designed, clean and clear deck.
Cover slide
Problem slide 1
Problem slide 2
Product slide
Market size slide
Solution slide
Value proposition slide
KPI slide (marked as “financials” slide)
“The ask” slide
Team slide
User testimonials slide
Financing history slide
Thank you and contact slide
Three things to love
Northspyre has a mature and well-designed deck that is a sight for sore eyes compared to many of the others we’ve looked at as part of this series. Here are a few highlights.
Gotta love this mic drop of a market slide
For some markets, you have to go in-depth to explain why this is a market worth going after. That’s particularly true for technology companies that are working in emerging industries. Construction ain’t one of those, and so you kind of get away with anything. Including:
[Slide 5] Market size? Huge. Next question. Image Credits: Northspyre
A quick Google search gives U.S. real estate development numbers ranging from $2 trillion to several times that number. I don’t think anyone is going to argue with the fact that this is a big potential market, and you can probably get away with saying you’re taking a slice of that market and calling it a day.
As a startup, it’s a good idea to read the assignment before filling out the answer; if you label your slide “product,” it had best touch on at least some of the things that investors are looking for in a product slide.
However … the one thing to be careful of here: When you’re talking about market sizes, you’re not usually talking about the size of the full value of goods sold. If you are eBay, your market size isn’t the list price of all of the sneakers, video games and cars listed on the site; it’s the buyer’s fees and sales commissions of the same. In other words: The market size for eBay for the sale of a single PlayStation 5 is probably around $30 or so not $500.
Northspyre is getting dangerously close to making that mistake here: Even if the company executes with utter perfection, it isn’t going to become a $2 trillion company. To be fair, they aren’t necessarily claiming that here — and it’s probably irrelevant, given that the market is intuitively huge — but for a perfect score here, the startup could have figured out what its real TAM/SAM/SOM numbers are and have an intelligent conversation about that.
Be very careful about what it is you’re actually promising as your market size. By all means: Report the top-line number for the entire market, but you have to drill down from there to get the full picture.
Answers the “why” beautifully
[Slide 7] What’s the value you deliver to your customers? Image Credits: Northspyre
It’s always a really solid idea to explain why and how a customer might benefit from using your product. This slide (combined with the market size slide above) tells a powerful story there. The company suggests that teams can save 2% to 6% of their build costs. Multiply that by the $2 trillion market size, and a picture starts to form: Northspyre is promising up to $120 billion worth of cost savings in an industry that is hungry to cut costs. It’s a great story, made even stronger by including a link to a return on investment calculator.
A fair few startups are unable to tell the “but why should I care as an investor?” story, and it’s a relief to see Northspyre avoid that trap. This is a solid value proposition and a great idea to highlight to your investors.
KPIs
The company has this slide listed as its “financials” slide. It isn’t; financials are usually presented either as an operating plan or as “proper” financials showing more in-depth spreadsheets or overviews of what the next three to five years of a company look like. This slide is mislabeled, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tell a helpful part of the story:
[Slide 8] Financials they ain’t, but helpful they are. Image Credits: Northspyre
I would probably label this slide “traction,” or “key performance indicators,” or perhaps even “our story in numbers.” Whatever the right label is, these numbers aren’t kidding around: Six hundred percent growth since 2020 is awesome (although it would be good to know how it measures its growth — number of customers? Revenue? Number of projects?).
Gross margins of 91% are SaaS-level returns, and 130% net revenue retention is beyond impressive. It means that, on average, customers increase their spend with Northspyre instead of churning away. A customer count of 130 is less impressive — presumably, some of those aren’t the most important customers — but it shows that the company at least has a pipeline for acquiring customers that is scalable up to a point. Those are all positive.
The other great thing is that it shows that Northspyre knows what the important KPIs are: gross margin, NRR, growth and number of customers are all worth tracking.
The $1.61 of ARR for every $1 invested is a little fuzzier, and I’m less sure why this particular number is on this slide. If this is a historical number, I’d be eager to understand how confident the company is that it can continue along this trajectory. How sure is it that if it raises $20 million, it will have an additional $32.2 million added to its ARR figure by the end of the 12-month period? If that confidence is low (or comes with caveats), it means the company is peddling numbers that are a little on the vanity side of things.
Now, I’m not going to give Northspyre a hard time here. It has additional slides on financials that are removed from this deck, so it’s possible there’s other helpful data elsewhere.
But as a startup, what you can learn from this example is to ensure that you signal to your investors that you know what the most important metrics are within your business. Pair that with a “go to market” or “growth” slide to draw the historical lines into the future, and you’ve gone a long way toward highlighting why you’re worth the investment.
In the rest of this teardown, we’ll take a look at three things Northspyre could have improved or done differently — including how its product slide isn’t, in fact, a product slide — along with its full pitch deck!
Pitch Deck Teardown: Northspyre’s $25 million Series B deck by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch
Why is Identity Security Awareness Becoming the Need of the Hour?
Customer identity security is essential to running a business in the digital age. With an increasing number of cyber-attacks and data breaches, businesses must be vigilant in protecting the identities of their customers. With the rise of online transactions and the growing number of cyber threats, companies must understand the importance of securing their customers’
The post Why is Identity Security Awareness Becoming the Need of the Hour? appeared first on ReadWrite.
Customer identity security is essential to running a business in the digital age. With an increasing number of cyber-attacks and data breaches, businesses must be vigilant in protecting the identities of their customers.
With the rise of online transactions and the growing number of cyber threats, companies must understand the importance of securing their customers’ personal information and take appropriate measures to protect it.
Let’s discuss why customer identity security awareness is crucial for businesses and what they can do to ensure their customers’ information stays safe.
Importance of Protecting Personal Information
Identity theft can have severe and long-lasting consequences for individuals, including financial losses, damage to their credit score, and even legal issues.
Individuals must protect their personal information and be aware of the risks associated with sharing information online. This includes being cautious of phishing scams, using strong and unique passwords, and regularly monitoring their credit reports.
Apart from this, organizations are also responsible for protecting their customers’ information and implementing strong security measures to prevent data breaches.
This includes investing in cybersecurity solutions, regularly training employees on best practices, and conducting regular security audits to identify and address vulnerabilities.
Organizations must also be transparent with their customers about data breaches and what steps they are taking to protect their information.
Let’s uncover the aspects of identity security awareness training and why it’s becoming the need of the hour for businesses serving customers online.
1. Protecting Customer Information
The first and foremost reason customer identity security awareness is crucial is to protect the customers’ personal information. Personal information, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and payment information, are valuable assets for cybercriminals.
If this information falls into the wrong hands, it can lead to severe consequences, including identity theft, financial fraud, and reputational damage to the business.
Enterprises must emphasize using identity management tools that can ensure the highest level of security for
2. Maintaining Trust and Confidence
Customers trust businesses with their personal information, and it’s the company’s responsibility to protect this information. If a company experiences a data breach, customer trust and confidence in the business can be severely damaged.
This can result in long-term consequences for the business, including loss of customers, reduced revenue, and harm to the company’s reputation.
3. Complying with Regulations
Another reason why customer identity security awareness is crucial is that businesses must comply with various regulations and laws governing personal information handling.
For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires businesses to protect personal data and report any data breaches to the relevant authorities. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in substantial fines and legal penalties.
4. Preventing Cyber Attacks
Cyberattacks are becoming increasingly common and sophisticated, and businesses must be prepared to defend against them. Cybercriminals can use various methods to access sensitive information, including phishing scams, malware, and social engineering attacks.
Businesses can reduce the risk of a successful cyberattack by being aware of these threats and taking appropriate measures to protect customer information.
5. Improving Customer Experience
Finally, customer identity security awareness can also improve the customer experience. When customers know that their personal information is being protected, they can have peace of mind when conducting transactions with the platform and would love to stay with the brand for longer.
So, what can organizations do to enhance their customers’ identity security awareness?
Tips to Improve Customers’ Identity Security Awareness
1. Stay Educated and Informed
Your customers are essential to your business, and you want to ensure they’re safe and protected. But how can you do that when so many new threats emerge daily?
It’s crucial to stay up-to-date on the latest threats and trends in cybersecurity, as well as regularly educate your customers and employees on best practices for protecting their information. You can read industry news and articles, attend webinars and training sessions, and stay informed about new security technologies.
As an enterprise, it’s your responsibility to ensure your customers constantly learn about the latest threats and vulnerabilities and are shielded against them.
2. The Use of Strong Passwords and Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
The number of data breaches is rising exponentially. But what can you do to prevent those breaches in the first place and help secure your customer identities?
One of the most effective ways is using strong passwords and enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA). This can significantly enhance the security of your accounts and help prevent unauthorized access to your information and identity theft.
With MFA in place, enterprises can stay assured that even if one aspect of authentication, like passwords, is compromised, there’s another stringent mechanism to reinforce customer account security.
Educating your customers regarding strong passwords and your enterprise’s security posture and offering frequent training sessions to efficiently utilize the identity management tools can eventually be a game-changer in reinforcing your customers’ identity security awareness.
3. Educate Your Customers to Review Security Policies
When it comes to identity security, the threat landscape is quite broad. And a single mistake from your customers’ end could lead to severe consequences that may even hamper your brand reputation.
Hence, it’s always a great idea to educate your customers regarding the potential threats they may encounter while they browse on other platforms.
Here’s what needs to be done from your end to ensure robust customer identity security:
Educate yourself about the importance of regularly reviewing privacy settings: Ask your customers to regularly review privacy settings on social media and other online accounts that can help prevent sensitive information from being shared with unauthorized individuals. This can include checking who can see personal information.
Understand what sensitive information is: Ensure your customers are well aware of sensitive information, which includes their social security numbers, credit card numbers, health records, passwords, and even their mother’s maiden name. It is essential to keep this information safe because it can be used for identity theft or fraud.
Identity protection: Identity protection involves keeping an eye out for suspicious activity in their name or an attempt to gain access to accounts that belong to them. This could include someone applying for credit cards in their name or attempting to access bank accounts linked to their social security number.
Why does Identity Security Awareness Matter Now More than Ever?
Today, personal information is being collected and stored by numerous organizations and businesses, from banks to social media platforms. This information can be vulnerable to theft and misuse if it falls into the wrong hands.
A lack of awareness about the importance of identity security can lead to customers not taking the necessary precautions to protect their personal information. This could result in financial loss, reputation damage, and even personal freedoms.
A lack of customer awareness of identity security can also have severe consequences for businesses. A data breach or cyber-attack can cause significant damage to a company’s reputation and financial stability.
Additionally, businesses are increasingly held responsible for protecting customer data and ensuring appropriate security measures are in place.
Therefore, businesses must educate their customers about the importance of identity security and what they can do to protect themselves.
Businesses can also offer identity management tools and resources to help customers secure their identities, such as identity theft protection services.
To Conclude
Identity security is an important aspect of modern life, particularly in the digital age. It refers to the measures and techniques used to protect an individual’s personal and sensitive information from unauthorized access, theft, and abuse.
However, despite its significance, many customers may not be aware of the importance of identity security and the consequences of neglecting it.
In a nutshell, identity security is a crucial aspect of modern life, and customers must be made aware of its importance. Neglecting identity security can lead to significant consequences for both individuals and businesses. Businesses must educate their customers about the importance of identity security and provide them with the necessary tools and resources to protect themselves.
Featured Image Credit: Photo by Mikhail Nilov; Pexels; Thank you!
The post Why is Identity Security Awareness Becoming the Need of the Hour? appeared first on ReadWrite.
Struggling With Brain Fog? You Might Be Missing These 4 Key Vitamins – CNET
Check your diet — a lack of certain vitamins and minerals may be causing your brain fog.
Check your diet — a lack of certain vitamins and minerals may be causing your brain fog.
Reliance-backed Dunzo nears fresh funding of $50 million
The Indian hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo is in late-stage discussions to secure about $50 million in a new financing round, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, as the Bengaluru-headquartered startup scrambles for comfort in an otherwise funding winter for younger firms. Reliance Retail and Google, two existing backers of Dunzo, are among those
Reliance-backed Dunzo nears fresh funding of $50 million by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch
The Indian hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo is in late-stage discussions to secure about $50 million in a new financing round, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, as the Bengaluru-headquartered startup scrambles for comfort in an otherwise funding winter for younger firms.
Reliance Retail and Google, two existing backers of Dunzo, are among those who are holding discussions to invest in the new round, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the information is private. The funding deliberations are currently moving ahead largely with existing backers, the sources said.
The startup has been in the market to raise capital for several months and was looking to raise at least $70 million and as much as $150 million, according to the Indian newspaper Economic Times.
Kabeer Biswas, co-founder and chief executive of Dunzo, declined to comment Thursday. Google and Reliance Retail did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dunzo competes with Swiggy’s Instamart, YC Continuity-backed Zepto, Tata-owned Bigbasket and Zomato’s BlinkIt, all of whom are attempting to court a slice of India’s retail market that is estimated to grow to over $800 billion by 2025, according to estimates by brokerage firm Bernstein.
Delivery startups, typically among the most cash-guzzling businesses, are unsurprisingly especially finding it challenging to raise new financing rounds amid the globally weakening economy.
And it’s a dynamic that is playing out globally. Europe’s rapid delivery market has consolidated down to three companies. Instacart has cut its internal valuation to $10 billion, down from $39 billion in March 2021.
Further reading: Reliance JioMart shutters its quick delivery service ‘Express’ (Economic Times)
Reliance-backed Dunzo nears fresh funding of $50 million by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch
Dianna Agron goes to a freaky fertility clinic in ‘Clock’ trailer
Hulu’s upcoming horror flick Clock follows Ella (Dianna Agron), a woman who doesn’t want kids but who feels societal pressure to do so. Worried that her biological clock is somehow broken, she decides to participate in a clinical trial led by Dr. Elizabeth Simmons (Melora Hardin). Some talk of a synthetic hormone, cognitive behavioral therapy, and an implant ensues, and before long it looks like we’re off to the races for medical horror.
Ella experiences frightening visions, like a slack-jawed apparition outside her car or tarantulas crawling over a pregnant belly. Coupled with distorted assertions that the family is everything and that women’s primary purpose is to procreate, and you’re looking at a ticking time bomb of fright.
Clock hits Hulu Apr. 28.
Hulu’s upcoming horror flick Clock follows Ella (Dianna Agron), a woman who doesn’t want kids but who feels societal pressure to do so. Worried that her biological clock is somehow broken, she decides to participate in a clinical trial led by Dr. Elizabeth Simmons (Melora Hardin). Some talk of a synthetic hormone, cognitive behavioral therapy, and an implant ensues, and before long it looks like we’re off to the races for medical horror.
Ella experiences frightening visions, like a slack-jawed apparition outside her car or tarantulas crawling over a pregnant belly. Coupled with distorted assertions that the family is everything and that women’s primary purpose is to procreate, and you’re looking at a ticking time bomb of fright.
Google Fi on iPhones Now Works With 5G Thanks to iOS 16.4 – CNET
It took a while, but 5G for Google Fi iPhones has finally arrived.
It took a while, but 5G for Google Fi iPhones has finally arrived.