Cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting security flaws in smart contracts to steal cryptocurrency, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In an advisory it published on Monday (via Bleeping Computer), the agency warned investors of a significant uptick in attacks targeting decentralized finance platforms.

Between January and March of this year, hackers stole $1.3 billion worth of cryptocurrencies, with almost 97 percent of that money coming from DeFi platforms, the FBI said citing data from Chainalysis. That’s an increase from both 2021 and 2020 when DeFi-related thefts represented 72 percent and 30 percent the source of all stolen crypto. The agency has seen criminals employ a variety of methods to fleece DeFi platforms. In one case, hackers employed a so-called flash loan attack to steal approximately $3 million worth of cryptocurrencies. In a separate attack targetting a signature verification vulnerability in a platform’s token bridge, cybercriminals made off with $320 million.

Chainanalysis

Many of the most prolific hacks in recent months fall into those categories of attacks. For instance, the largest crypto heist ever saw the Lazarus Group, a North Korean state-sponsored hacking collective, target Axie Infinity. The group reportedly exploited a backdoor in a Remote Procedure Call node from Axie creator Sky Mavis to forge fake withdrawals using compromised private keys. More recently, a hacking “free-fo-all” saw Nomad bridge users lose $200 million worth of crypto due to a misconfiguration.

The FBI recommends investors take a handful of precautions before risking their money with a DeFi platform. You should research the platform you want to invest in, as well as the details of the smart contract they employ. Additionally, only put money down on a firm or company that has paid for independent code audits. You also want to avoid investment pools with extremely limited timeframes to join.

"Cyber criminals seek to take advantage of investors' increased interest in cryptocurrencies, as well as the complexity of cross-chain functionality and open source nature of DeFi platforms," the FBI said. "Investors should make their own investment decisions based on their financial objectives and financial resources and, if in any doubt, should seek advice from a licensed financial adviser."

Mercedes-Benz has officially launched production of its all-electric EQS SUV at its Tuscaloosa, Alabama production plant, the company announced today. Earlier this year the German automaker previewed the vehicle — its very first electric SUV — and promised it would be built in the US and available later this fall. While supply chain bottlenecks have delayed launches of other new EVs, Mercedes has a couple of factors working in its favor. The company already secured its battery materials by partnering with the Canadian government this month. It also plans to produce its batteries locally, at its own factory in nearby Bibb County, Alabama.

Our preview of the EQS SUV noted that its battery range works out to a little over 300 miles. The automaker has yet to disclose the price of the car, which, as Electreknotes, will determine whether the SUV is eligible for a 2023 EV tax credit or not. Currently, new SUVs must be assembled in North America and priced under $80,000 to qualify for next year’s tax credit. Given that Mercedes’ EQS sedan started at a little over $103,000, it’s probably safe to say that the price of its new electric SUV will trump that — and won’t qualify for any tax rebates. Seems like EQS SUV drivers will have to resign themselves to saving money on fuel.

Amazon plans to discontinue its Care telehealth service by the end of the year, reports The Washington Post. The company reportedly told employees of the decision during a meeting on Wednesday. It's expected "dozens" of employees will lose their jobs as a result. 

Amazon did not immediately respond to Engadget's request for comment. “This decision wasn’t made lightly and only became clear after many months of careful consideration,” Amazon senior vice president of health Neil Lindsay told employees in a memo the company shared with The Post. “Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term.”

Amazon's decision to shutter the service is surprising given that the company only last year announced it was expanding its availability to more workers and companies across the US. What's more, Amazon CEO Adam Jassy highlighted Amazon Care in his 2021 letter to shareholders, citing the platform as an example of the "type of iterative innovation" that was driving the next chapter of the company. More recently, the company struck a deal to buy healthcare provider One Medical for $3.9 billion. 

eBay is placing a big bet on the booming trading card industry. The company is set to buy TCGplayer — an online marketplace for trading card games — in a deal valued up to $295 million, it announced today. Launched in 2008, TCGplayer specializes in trading cards from popular franchises like Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Digimon and more. The site will operate independently after the acquisition, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023. eBay — which is currently the world’s largest card resale site — also noted that the deal will provide it with “strategic omnichannel capabilities like order fulfillment and cart optimization.”

The pandemic drove a surge of interest in collectible trading cards that has only recently started to slow down. Last year eBay sold a trading card every two seconds, noted The Athletic. The company has taken steps to make it easier for individuals to sell trading cards on its platform, such as adding image recognition to automate listings and authenticating trading cards worth $750 or more.

eBay has also ventured into another area of collectibles — NFTs. Earlier this year, the company launched its own NFT collection and bought digital art marketplace KnownOrigin for an undisclosed sum.  

Following more than two years of controversy, the chief executive officer of Pegasus spyware creator NSO Group is stepping down. On Sunday, co-founder and outgoing CEO Shalev Hulio said he was handing over operations of the company to chief operating officer Yaron Shohat as part of a restructuring that will see it refocus on NATO-member countries. According to Bloomberg, NSO is also cutting its headcount. The firm reportedly plans to lay off about 100 employees before it appoints a permanent replacement for Hulio.

The restructuring comes as NSO Group continues to face scrutiny from both governments and other tech companies. In November 2021, the US Commerce Department added NSO to its Entity List, effectively banning American companies from doing business with the firm unless they obtain explicit permission to do so. That same month, Apple sued NSO to “hold it accountable” for enabling governments to spy on activists and journalists.

"The company’s products remain in high demand with governments and law enforcement agencies because of its cutting-edge technology and proven ability to assist these customers in fighting crime and terror," Shohat said. "NSO will ensure that the company's groundbreaking technologies are used for rightful and worthy purposes."

Netflix’s entry into the gaming market is off to a slow start. According to an analysis performed by Apptopia on behalf of CNBC, the streaming giant’s games have been downloaded a total of 23.3 million times and average about 1.7 million daily users. Put another way, less than one percent of Netflix’s 221 million customers are taking advantage of the games included in their subscriptions.

Netflix did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. In the past, the company indicated it did not expect its gaming division to be profitable immediately. “We’re going to be experimental and try a bunch of things,” Netflix COO Greg Peters told investors during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings calls last year.

Still, the question that’s probably on everyone’s mind is how long Netflix is willing to wait to see if it made the right bet, especially after it lost nearly one million subscribers during its most recent quarter. Other lofty bets — like the company's in-house fan blog, Tudum — were the subject of cutbacks after only a few months of spending.

The company has shared precious few details on how much it has spent expanding its portfolio beyond TV shows and movies, but most signs point to a significant investment. Earlier this year, the company paid $72 million to acquire Next Games, the studio behind Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales. More recently, it secured exclusive mobile rights to beloved indie titles like Spiritfarer and Into The Breach. The company is unlikely to make similar investments in the future if its current ones don’t pan out.

SoundCloud is joining the depressingly long list of companies in the tech industry that are letting personnel go due to the economic downturn. According to Billboard and Variety, company CEO Michael Weissman told employees in an email that it's "making reductions" to its global team that will impact up to 20 percent of SoundCloud. Weissman said the move is necessary "given the challenging economic climate and financial market headwinds." Further, the layoffs and the prudent financial decisions the company had recently made apparently put it on the path to sustained profitability.

A spokesperson has confirmed the job cuts to Billboard, adding that SoundCloud is providing support to employees who have to exit the company. The online audio distribution platform last laid off a significant chunk of its workforce — 40 percent in all — back in 2017, when it was struggling financially. As Billboard notes, SoundCloud has secured hundreds of millions of investments and has announced its first profitable quarter in 2020 since then. 

In 2021, the company introduced a listener-based royalties model that could lead to better pay for indie artists, since subscribers' payments go straight to the artists they listen to. Warner Music Group recently adopted the model, becoming the first major label to do so. SoundCloud also purchased an AI music curation company called Musiio in May to help users find hidden gems before they make it big. Musiio's technology listens to songs, tags them and then inserts them into appropriate playlists. 

Based on SoundCloud's LinkedIn profile, it has 1,707 employees at the moment. If that figure is correct, around 340 people will lose their jobs. Weissman said in his email to staff members that the layoffs will affect employees in the US and the UK, who will be notified in the coming days.

Nintendo's Switch sales fell significantly last quarter, dropping to 3.43 million units compared to 4.45 million during the same period last year, according to its earnings report. Software sales also fell to 41.4 million units compared to 45.3 million year over year. All that that resulted in an operating profit of 101.6 billion yen ($763 million), down from last year and short of what was expected. 

The company chalked up the Switch sales issue to a parts shortage, the same thing that bedeviled Sony during the same quarter. "Hardware production was impacted by factors such as the global shortage of semiconductor components, resulting in a decrease of hardware shipments," the company said. It noted that the OLED model made up a large chunk of Switch sales with 1.52 million units sold, and the lower margins on that model dragged profit down a bit.

While game sales also dropped, Nintendo managed to boost the overall percentage of first-party games sold. In fact, it was the second best first quarter for first-party game sell-through since the Switch launched — second only to Q1 2021, which was fueled by Animal Crossing: New Horizons. All told, however, Nintendo would have to call the quarter a success considering that game buyers spent 13 percent less this year compared to 2021, according to Bloomberg. 

Some of that was aided by the launch of three key games, the company pointed out, particularly Nintendo Switch Sports which arrived on April 29th. Mario Strikers: Battles League launched on June 10th, while Fire Emblem Warriors arrived on June 24th. "More than 100 million users played Nintendo Switch in the latest 12-month period," the company added. 

Nintendo is hoping that upcoming games will help out next quarter. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 just launched, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Booster Course Pass: Wave 2 arrives on August 4th, Splatoon 3 will be released on September 9th and you'll see Kirby's Dream Buffet sometime this summer. The company is also launching an OLED Switch Splatoon 3 Edition on August 26th. 

For the second time this year, Robinhood is cutting its headcount. On Tuesday, the company announced it would lay off 23 percent of its workforce. According to CEO Vlad Tenev, the cuts will affect every part of Robinhood’s business but will primarily target the company’s “operations, marketing and program management functions.”

Tenev blamed a deteriorating macro environment for the decision, pointing to record inflation and the cryptocurrency crash as the primary drivers of the company’s recent woes. Additionally, he acknowledged the company overhired last year on the assumption retail investors would continue trading stocks and crypto assets at the rate they had during the early stages of the pandemic. Prior to April when Robinhood laid off nine percent of its workforce, the company had a headcount of approximately 3,800. “As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory – this is on me,” he said.

On Tuesday, Robinhood also announced its Q2 results one day ahead of schedule. The company reported a net loss of $295 million after revenue fell by 44 percent year-on-year to $318 million. 

In his letter to employees, Tenev said Robinhood would transition to an organizational model where general managers would oversee broad parts of the company’s business. “This change will flatten hierarchies, reduce cross-functional dependencies, and remove redundant roles and positions,” he claimed. Tenev added that Robinhood would notify affected employees via Slack and email. They can stay with the company until October 1st, 2022.

It's the end of an era at the company formerly known as Facebook. Sheryl Sandberg has officially stepped down as Chief Operating Officer on August 1st, as revealed by a SEC filing noticed by TechCrunch. In the filing, Meta said Javier Olivan is now the company's COO and that Sandberg will only remain an employe until September 30th. After that and going forward, Sandberg will serve as a member of Meta's Board and will receive compensation as a non-employee director. 

Sandberg first announced that she was leaving her role as COO of Meta after 14 years in early June. Mark Zuckerberg revealed at the time that Olivan will take on the COO role, but that his responsibilities will be different from Sandberg's. Olivan will have a "more traditional COO role where [he] will be focused internally and operationally, building on his strong track record of making our execution more efficient and rigorous," the company CEO said. 

As The Wall Street Journal noted in a piece about Sandberg back in June, she joined Facebook in 2008 and led the business side of the company, allowing Zuckerberg to focus on engineering work. In more recent years, she became the face of the social network when it comes to leading public response to controversies, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Before Sandberg announced her departure, The Journal reported that the Meta COO used company resources to help kill negative reporting about Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who she was dating at the time. In mid-June, the publication also reported that Meta’s lawyers are investigating Sandberg's use of the company's resources and employees for her foundation and to promote her book Option B. 

Sandberg is leaving the company just as it has started preparing for "serious times." In a meeting with employees, Zuckerberg revealed that Meta is experiencing "one of the worst downturns [it has seen] in recent history." As a result, Meta had to slash its target number for new engineers this year. In addition, company leadership reportedly told managers to identify poor performers and to "move to exit" them if they can't get back on track.