Trend Micro Claims That Gmail Cyberattacks Also Targeted Hotmail and Yahoo Mail As Well

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It was revealed by Trend Micro, on Friday that the recent cyber attacks aimed to penetrate were not only aimed the online email services of Google, but also Microsoft and Yahoo! According to the investigation of a US federal agent, these Gmail spying efforts were successfully countered by Google. Trend Micro made another allegation that both Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail were also subjected to the same hack attacks. The senior threat researcher at Trend Micro, Nart Villeneuve, stated in an online post that "there has been a variety of recent attacks on popular Webmail platforms." He declared that "in addition to Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail have also been targeted. While the attacks appear to have been separately conducted, these have some significant similarities."

Google made the announcement this Wednesday that a cyber spying attack, which was allegedly originated from somewhere in China, was aimed to target the Gmail accounts of several senior US officials, military personnel, journalists, Chinese political activists, along with the officials of several Asian countries, mainly in South Korea. Eric Grosse, the head of Google’s security division stated in his official blog post that "We recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing." He added that "The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users' emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords." Allegedly the campaign was technically traced back to be originated from Jinan, the capital of eastern Chinese province of Shandong. Grosse reported that these attacks were aimed to penetrate the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of Gmail users.

Alibaba CEO, Jack Ma, Announces That All Board Members, Including Yahoo, Were Discussing Alipay Dissolution since Three Years

The CEO of AliBaba, the largest Chinese online retailer company, has been constantly been tied up with endless boardroom talks as two of the chief stakeholders of the company give critical disagreement on a decision. The divergence in opinion came between the management when the company announced to give the control of its online payment service exclusively to the Chinese citizens, making it a disconnected entity from AliBaba Group. The chairman, C.E.O., and the key person behind AliBaba group, Jack Ma, recently stated at the All Things D’s Digital conference, that this move was extremely necessary for ensuring that AliPay gets licensed by the Chinese regulatory authorities. He claimed that this option was being constantly discussed with all stake holders since three years now and, according to him, there is now way possible that board was unaware of this move. AliBaba Group has been facing major criticism in this regard specifically from its 43 percent shareholder Yahoo Inc.

Image via CrunchBaseSince the announcement of Alipay’s spinoff on 10^th May, the shares of Yahoo Inc have downed by almost 15 percent, eradicating a complete $3.5 billion off of its market value. Ma is now the only person running the online payment system, and not Yahoo Inc., which Ma defended by saying that "We've been discussing that for over three years, so it's impossible that the board does not know that." He also stated that "somebody has to take responsibility. Somebody has to take the leadership to move things ahead. ... If we do not get the license, Alipay's gone, Alibaba's gone."

Yahoo Finally Launches Its Email Service Overhaul

Yahoo Inc. has finally announced the makeover of its well-accepted email service, it had promised quite a while ago. This makeover is Yahoo’s shot at making its e-mail service more attractive as it keeps on trying to challenge the users’ mounting interest in new services like Facebook, Twitter, and Google along with other online communicative methods. This overhaul of the feeble service was announced on Tuesday, declaring to completely redesign the email format which Yahoo has kept in its testing phase for almost sevenths months now. The entire consumer base of Yahoo email service, almost 277 million users, is going to be shifted to the updated version in a phased manner over the next few weeks.

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This new makeover includes plenty new features, including an integration of Facebook and Twitter accounts automatically updated from within Yahoo's email boxes and many more. Whereas, many old features are improved as well, including the overall speed which is promised to be twice as faster and the capability of sending attachments as big as 100MB. Other miscellaneous developments include better junk-mail controls and the feature of chatting to your online Facebook friends. Yahoo is literally relying on this upgrade to not only appease the current email users, but also attract new users, since it is definitely in a time of need for the e-mail service. Majority of its users are adopting the rival Gmail service, run by Internet search leader Google Inc., which grows its consumer base steeply.

Yahoo and AliBaba Give a Joint Press Release, Announcing that they’re "Committed To" Negotiations

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Yahoo Inc. and Alibaba Group both have just released a joint statement on this Sunday, stating that both giants are "engaged in and committed to productive negotiations." No further elaborative details were provided, which implies that both companies are just together to present a united front as the aggressiveness between the two companies grows gradually. Yahoo is actually the 43 percent stakeholder of Alibaba group, one of the most powerful Internet Companies in China. These constraints between the companies were revealed first on the Tuesday, when Yahoo surprisingly reported to Wall Street Journal that it was not consulted regarding the decision Alibaba spun off its online payment service, Alipay. Many investors reacted cautiously as Yahoo's stake in Alibaba became controversial and less valuable, evidently the stock down, whit Yahoo closing at $16.55 on Friday.

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The joint press release on Sunday, of the two companies only included a single statement: "Alibaba Group, and its major stockholders Yahoo! Inc. and Softbank Corporation, are engaged in and committed to productive negotiations to resolve the outstanding issues related to Alipay in a manner that serves the interests of all shareholders as soon as possible." This statement is being considered just as imprecise and ambiguous as the previous statements and allegations of Yahoo! The Yahoo spokesperson, Dana Lengkeek, refused to give any further details about this planned negotiation between the giants and the demands of Yahoo from AliBaba Group. While the representatives of both Alibaba and Softbank, remained unreachable for any comment.

The Shares of Yahoo! Drown As It Files Complaints against Alibaba

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The shares of Yahoo! saw a slight decline after the cross-statements passed between the Alibaba Group, a Chinese e-commerce giant and the California Internet company Yahoo!, on the Friday. Yahoo! is one of the largest share holders of the AliBaba Group and in consequences of its anxiety with AliBaba Group, its fell upto 3.61 percent closing at a rate of $16.55, as reported by Wall Street on Friday. WSJ further elaborated that the downfall in the Yahoo! stock began even before Friday, as the announcement of Alibaba acquiring its own online payment business, Alipay, on Wednesday.

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Retaliating to the news and affects, Yahoo! file an official complaint on Tuesday to the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding this ownership of Alipay, which largely shifts the charge of the Chinese company towards the owner of Alibaba, C.E.O. Jack Ma. In this complaint Yahoo! has appealed that it was not consulted regarding this new acquisition of Alipay, and went on blaming that this step has been taken without the approval of Alibaba's board of directors or shareholders. Yahoo! pointed out that even though this step was finalized by the company in August, Yahoo! and the second largest stakeholder, Japan's Softbank, were informed later in March, without any consultation of their opinion.

YouTube Founders Acquire the Delicious Website from Yahoo and Promise a Complete Makeover

After the initial announcement, when Yahoo first declared the news that it is seriously considering to restrict its different Web properties, many shocked by this news assumed automatically that its trendy bookmarking site Delicious is going to be among the first ones to be sacrificed. Despite the 

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decision of Yahoo, that it will consider selling the famous web-service rather than simply suspending it, this idea was another trouble maker as there were very few buyers for the website which caused even more concerns. It was also indentified by a former Delicious employee, that the site is developed in such a way that it will remain integrated with Yahoo’s platform only, which might’ve been the main cause for the potential buyers to back out.