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XWatch: 'There's Nothing That Attackers Love More Than Chaos' – Working From Home Securely While in Lockdown
Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.

Since the pandemic hit the U.S. hard in March, there has been a 6,000% increase in spam campaigns, with a particular focus around the keywords "COVID-19" and "coronavirus."
That's according to Wendi Whitmore, the vice president for IBM's X-Force Threat Intelligence, who spoke to dot.LA as part of a virtual panel on Tuesday.
It's been two months now — depending where you live — of working from home. As many businesses now contend with the reality of having their workforce at home for the foreseeable future, or even for the rest of their working lives (see: Twitter), cybersecurity has become a larger challenge, experts told dot.LA Tuesday.
Employees are using their own home internet networks for their jobs as well as for their own personal use, which poses some new dangers and increases the opportunities for attacks by malicious actors. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials and security experts have reported an increase in online attacks and scams, especially those targeting users' concerns and curiosity about COVID-19.
One key takeaway from today's session on securely working from home: In life as well as cybersecurity, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.
Strategy Session: Cybersecurity When Working From Homewww.youtube.com
The ongoing pandemic and social isolation has made people more likely to be online, checking the news, COVID-19 statistics, social media and email obsessively to, for example, figure out when businesses might be opening, whether they've received their federal stimulus funds or when this all ends. They're adjusting to a new normal and trying to multitask while working from home.
"And so, all of these things combined to create a little bit of a chaotic environment, and there's nothing that attackers love more than chaos," said Whitmore. "They can take advantage of it and leverage it, and that's exactly what we're seeing."
Since March 11, Whitmore said her team has seen a 6,000% increase in spam campaigns, and in particular those related to COVID-19 and the coronavirus.
The pandemic has been one of the first times in recent memory where a natural disaster has impacted all people globally, with local governments on up to the U.S. Supreme Court and the military, working from home. And yet, for some companies and other entities, critical staff or those providing an essential service have had members of their team working from offices or out in the community.
That sort of mixed work environment only adds to the complexity of the security needs for an organization, said Joshua Belk, a certified ethical hacker and the executive director of the L.A. Cyber Lab, a nonprofit that provides threat information to L.A. business community.
It's not just the corporate workforce being targeted.
The emergency efforts by localities to address community needs during the pandemic have also been the target of scammers looking for new victims. The L.A. Cyber Lab has been working with the city of Los Angeles and other cities around the Los Angeles area to help them maintain services to citizens in the community by making sure their infrastructure is online and properly guarded through good cybersecurity, Belk said.
These experts say that the attack methods haven't really changed, it's just that attackers are pivoting their methods to use a lure that's much more emotional for those who are targeted.
"They're taking advantage of the fear and uncertainty around COVID-19, that's captured the attention of the entire world," said Satnam Narang, a staff research engineer on Tenable's Security Response team. "It's presented them with a unique opportunity because it's consistently in the news every day, people are worried. So, they might be more inclined to open up an email from say the World Health Organization or the CDC, or depending on where you are regionally, for example, I think the Ministry of Health in China, for example, you know you've seen some emails purporting to be from them (but) obviously they're malicious in nature."
In Canada, scammers went door to door offering test kits for COVID-19, while other attacks include unsolicited text messages or calls that tell people they've tested positive for COVID-19 or a loved one is going to the hospital and they got arrested on the way and need to get bailed out. Some scams have included phone calls where a scammer claims they can get you a reservation for a vaccine if you provide a credit card and social security number.
That "is a big no, no," Narang said. "You never want to provide your social (security number) to anybody."
With U.S. unemployment claims last week rocketing to 36 million over the two-month period, unemployment applications, the Payroll Protection Plan and other business stimulus has also been targeted by attackers who see an opportunity for easy money through online fraud. Even a Nigerian crime ring has gotten into the action, stealing millions from U.S. unemployment programs. With information easily obtained through a phishing attack or scam, attackers can easily steal your identity and make their own application for benefits in a person's name or their company's name.
A lot of people may have already fallen victim to such attacks but due to delays in receiving funds, may not realize the truth until later this summer, Belk said, when reporting will certainly go up.
Meanwhile, social media giveaways have increased to try to help people in need, and bad actors have found yet another avenue of opportunity, targeting those peer-to-peer payment apps like Apple Pay, Cash App, Venmo and PayPal.
Narang has been studying Cash App, specifically, which has also found generous influencers to help with increased giveaways during this pandemic. Scammers would tell victims to send an amount of money, perhaps $10 or a couple hundred dollars, as an alleged processing fee before the person would receive a larger amount. However, once the amount was sent to the scammer, that person would block them and their larger payout would never arrive. The scammers have also created accounts to impersonate influencers who then solicit those initial processing fees, easily reaping money from a large number of unsuspecting targets, Narang said.
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," Narang said. "You should think that you would never have to pay money upfront to win a giveaway if you're being offered money, like by Cash App or one of these influencers."
He also noted that you should never get an incoming request for money.
Despite overall crime amid the shutdown and physical isolation being down, criminal activity in the virtual world has seemed to follow the ebb and flows of the virus, IBM found.
As the virus traveled -- in January and February hitting China and Asia hard, in March hitting Europe hard, and March to April hitting North America hard -- malicious activity and spam campaigns from those particular regions also decreased, Whitmore said.
Those traditional attack groups, from cyber criminals to nation-state actors, are "all back in full force, right after taking a bit of a hiatus for a few weeks, depending on what region they were in," she said.
Whitmore said she's seeing not just spam campaigns but also an increase in attacks now coming from cybercriminal groups and those often more sophisticated nation-state actors that are leveraging COVID-19 to entice users to engage.
That includes recent reports about countries trying to use their electronic attackers to steal vaccine information and patent information in the race to battle the virus and make money off of it too. While other nation-state hackers are trying to exploit the pandemic to target critical infrastructure like the energy, finance, water and power sectors. Such sectors are especially vulnerable to remote access attacks.
Ransomware is another ongoing concern, as it lures the victim to a sketchy link, which enables a hacker to lock you out of your system until and unless you pay them a fee. In the realm of healthcare facilities and hospitals, treating patients, such targeting on an already overloaded system, can be particularly detrimental.
In a scam in March, the malicious actors purported to provide a downloadable version of the Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus tracking map that could live on your computer. It was malware.
Tenable's team had also discovered a cybersecurity vulnerability that allowed a bad actor to potentially pretend to be the shopping app, Instacart, and message any user with a link that could then install malware or be used to phish for their online credentials. Narang said that Tenable immediately informed Instacart and the company quickly patched it on their site.
"The takeaway for everyone is, if it's not something you signed up for. And it's unsolicited, then you've got to watch out," Belk said.
For more details from the panel and tips on how to protect yourself while working from home, check out dot.LA's virtual panel.
Wendi Whitmore, Vice President, IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence
Wendi Whitmore, Vice President, IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence
Wendi Whitmore is a technical leader with almost 20 years of experience in incident response and data breach investigations. At IBM, Wendi was instrumental in creating IBM X-Force IRIS which includes the global X-Force Incident Response, Proactive Services, and Threat Intelligence practices. In her role, she leverages people, infrastructure, data and technology to drive the capabilities of detection and defense against targeted threats for global client organizations. Before joining IBM, Wendi held executive level positions at CrowdStrike and Mandiant, where she was responsible for professional services offerings. Wendi began her career as a Special Agent conducting computer crime investigations with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Joshua Belk, CEH, Executive Director of the LA Cyber Lab
Joshua Belk, CEH, Executive Director of the LA Cyber Lab
Joshua Belk is currently the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Cyber Lab, a non-profit providing threat information to LA Business community. Joshua is a former CSO for the FBI, has held various information security leadership roles with Fortune 200 companies and recently returned from a year long deployment with the Joint Special Operations Command, as reserve US Naval officer. With over 20 years in the security industry, Joshua brings a unique public-private sector experience to any conversation.
Satnam Narang, Staff Research Engineer, Tenable
Satnam Narang, Staff Research Engineer, Tenable
Satnam Narang serves as a Staff Research Engineer on Tenable's Security Response team, where he is responsible for providing technical analysis and remediation recommendations for critical vulnerabilities. Satnam is also a longtime expert on social media scams, conducting research into novel financial scams on Instagram, TikTok, Cash App and more. Before joining Tenable, Satnam worked as Senior Security Response Manager at Symantec and Threat Analyst at M86 Security. He also contributed to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, helped develop a Social Networking Guide for the National Cyber Security Alliance, uncovered a huge spam botnet on Twitter and was the first to report on spam bots on Tinder. He has appeared on NBC Nightly News, Entertainment Tonight, Bloomberg West, and the Why Oh Why podcast.
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Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.
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Venture Firm Backstage Capital Laid Off Nine Employees, Reducing Its Staff to Just Three
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Venture firm Backstage Capital laid off nine employees, reducing its staff to just three.
Managing partner and founder Arlan Hamilton announced the layoffs Sunday on her “Your First Million” podcast. General partners Christie Pitts and Brittany Davis, along with Hamilton, are the only remaining employees, TechCrunch reported. The move comes only three months after the Los Angeles-based firm said it would only fund existing portfolio companies.
“It’s not that I feel like there’s any sort of failure on the fund side, on the firm’s side, on Backstage’s side, it’s that this could have been avoided if…the system we work within were different,” Hamilton said during the podcast.
Hamilton founded Backstage in 2015 to highlight underrepresented founders and launched a crowdfunding campaign last year to draw in everyday investors. The company announced its plan to raise $30 million for a new fund, bringing in $1 million from Comcast. Having invested in 200 companies, Backstage announced in March that it would not be making new investments.
Hamilton said Backstage’s situation is a “purgatory kind of position,” with companies saying the fund was either too developed or not developed enough to invest in. However, in an email sent to stakeholders, she said she is “optimistic about the next 18 months.”
The firm still intends to grow its assets under management to over $100 million as Hamilton looks for backing from to the 26 funds she has invested in for backing. Hamilton said the company does not “have dry powder right now,” which points to the firm’s struggle to grow.
The news comes during a wave of layoffs across Los Angeles, with companies like Voyage SMS, Albert and Bird letting go of employees.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
A New Tide of LA Startups Is Tackling the National Childcare Crisis
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
The pandemic exacerbated a problem that has been long bubbling in the U.S.: the childcare crisis.
According to a survey of people in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers conducted by the city’s WiSTEM Los Angeles program and shared exclusively with dot.LA, the pandemic exposed a slew of challenges across STEM fields. The survey—which consisted of 181 respondents from L.A.County and was conducted between March 2021 and 2022— involved respondents across medical fields, technical professions and science industries who shared the pandemic’s effects on their professional or education careers.
The survey found 60% of the respondents, primarily women, were balancing increased caretaking roles with work or school responsibilities. And while caretaking responsibilities grew, 49% of respondents said their workload also increased during the pandemic.
“The pandemic threw a wrench into lots of folks' experiences both professionally and academically,” said Kathryne Cooper, a health tech investor who sits on the advisory board of WiSTEM. “So we need to acknowledge that.”
In the L.A. area, an increasing number of childcare startups are aiming to address this massive challenge that is a growing national crisis. The U.S. has long dealt with a crippling childcare infrastructure plagued by low wages and a labor shortage in preschools and daycares, but the COVID-19 crisis made it worse. During the pandemic, women left the workforce due to the lack of childcare and caretaking resources. By 2021, women made up the lowest percentage of the workforce since 1988, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Despite the pandemic forcing everyone indoors, caretaking duties fell disproportionately on women.
“I almost actually left my job because everything that I looked at was either waitlisted or the costs were so astronomical that it probably made sense for me to stay at home rather than pay someone to actually look after my child,” said Jessica Chang, the CEO of childcare startup WeeCare.
Brella's Playa Vista-based childcare center lobby.Photo courtesy of Brella
The Marina del Rey-based WeeCare, one of the startups that helps people open their own childcare facilities, announced it raised $12 million in April (to go along with an additional $5 million in bridge funding raised during the pandemic). The company helps people build daycare centers and works with employers to provide access to WeeCare centers and construct child care benefits programs.
Some of these startups strive to boost the number of daycare centers by helping operators with financial costs, licensing fees and scheduling. Wonderschool, a San Francisco-based child care startup, raised $25 million in January and assisted with hundreds of childcare facilities in L.A.-based Playground, which raised $3 million in seed funding last year per PitchBook. Playground acts as an in-house platform for childcare providers to communicate with staff and parents, track attendance, report student behavior and provide automatic invoicing services.
L.A.-based Brella, which launched in 2019, raised $5 million in seed funding in January to create a tech-enabled daycare scheduling platform that could meet the demand of flexible childcare as parents navigate a hybrid work environment, and recently opened a new location in Hollywood. The startup aims to address the labor shortage among childcare workers by paying its workers roughly $25 an hour and offering mental health benefits and career development opportunities for its educators.
“It's this huge disconnect in our society because these are really important people who are doing arguably one of the most important educational jobs,” said Melanie Wolff, co-founder of childcare startup Brella. “They often don't get benefits. They don't have a lot of job security.”
Venture capital funding has poured into the relatively new childcare sector. A slew of parent-tech companies aimed at finding flexible child care and monitoring children saw $1.4 billion worth of venture investments in 2021, according to PitchBook, largely to meet the demands of parents in a pandemic era who have more flexible work commutes and require more tech-enabled solutions.
“I think a lot of it has to do with what employers expect for workers,” said Darby Saxbe, an associate professor of psychology and family relationships expert at USC. “There's still a lot more stigma for men to build their work around caregiving responsibilities–there's a lot of evidence that men are often discouraged from taking paternity leave, even if it's available.”
WeeCare is one of several startups updating the childcare space with technology and flexibility.
Photo courtesy of WeeCare
Childcare benefits are also becoming a more attractive incentive as workers grapple with unorthodox work schedules in a hybrid setting.
“Employers, because of COVID, were having a hard time retaining and recruiting employees,” said Chang. “And they were actually incentivized to actually find a solution to help the employees.”
WeeCare primarily partners with employers of essential workers, like schools, hospitals and grocery stores, and the benefits programs account for the majority of WeeCare’s revenue.
Childcare works are part of a massive labor shortage in caretaker roles that also include nurses, and health aids for the eldery. These workers, which allow women to maintain careers in STEM and other high-paying industries, are vital, according to Saxbe.
“Women can advance in the workplace,” Saxbe said. “But if there's no support at home and there is no one who is helping take care of kids and elderly people, women can't just advance in a vacuum.”
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Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
MaC Venture Capital Raises $203M for Its Second Fund
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
While venture capital funding has taken a hit this year, that hasn’t stopped MaC Venture Capital from raising $203 million for its second fund.
The Los Angeles-based, Black-led VC firm said Monday that it had surpassed its initial $200 million goal for the fund, which dot.LA reported in January, over the span of seven months. MaC said it expects to invest the capital in up to 50 mostly seed-stage startups while remaining “sector-agnostic.”
“We love seed-stage companies because that’s where most of the value is created,” MaC managing general partner Marlon Nichols told dot.LA. While the firm has invested in local ventures like NFT gaming platform Artie, space startup Epsilon3 and autonomous sensor company Spartan Radar, Nichols said MaC—whose portfolio companies span from Seattle to Nairobi—would continue to eye ventures across the rest of the country and world.
“Talent is ubiquitous; access to capital is not,” Nichols noted. “What they’re building needs to matter; we’ve got to believe that this group of founders is the best team building in the space, period.”
Launched in 2019, MaC is led by four founding partners: VC veteran Nichols, former Washington, D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty, and former William Morris Endeavor talent agents Charles D. King and Michael Palank. Nichols described the team’s collective background in government, consulting, media, entertainment and talent management as its “superpower.”
In a venture capital industry where few people of color are decision-makers, MaC Venture Capital has looked to wield its influence to provide opportunities for founders of color. The firm says 69% of its portfolio companies were started by BIPOC founders and 36% are led by women, while MaC has also diversified its own ranks by adding female partners Zhenni Liu and Haley Farnsworth.
MaC’s second investment fund nearly doubled the size of the firm’s $110 million first fund, which it closed in March 2021. The new fund’s repeat institutional investors include Goldman Sachs, ICG Advisors, StepStone, the University of Michigan, the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, while the likes of Illumen Capital and the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois also pitched in as new investors.
“It’s a great combination of having affirmation from people who have been with us from the beginning and new people coming in that want to be a part of it,” Fenty told dot.LA.
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Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.