Payments flagged by U.S. banks as suspected ransomware in 2021 are on pace to nearly double those of 2020, according to reports filed with the Treasury Department. Almost $600 million in potential ransomware payments have been filed with the federal government from January through June, which is more than 40 percent more than the tally for full-year 2020. Reflecting the fact that governments worldwide describe cybercrime as a critical national security threat, the first International Cybersecurity Challenge is scheduled for Greece in June 2022, where 25 Americans aged 18 to 26 are set to compete. Read more

Introduced in select markets a little more than a year ago and rolled out globally in July, YouTube Shorts generated more than 15 billion daily views worldwide by late September (up from 6.5 billion daily views worldwide in March), according to YouTube parent Google. The format caps videos at 60-seconds and is designed to rival TikTok, which claims 1 billion active monthly users, putting it among the most rapid-growth platforms ever. Even with YouTube Shorts’ healthy growth, the company has just begun testing advertising and monetization approaches for the short-form video experience. Read more

New chip factories are springing up worldwide to meet a historic shortage of semiconductors. The effort to increase output to meet chip demand in everything from computers to cars to smart TVs includes a new $12 billion plant located in Arizona for the world’s largest wholesale chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSMC’s Arizona plant is scheduled to begin producing advanced 5nm chips by 2024. And as part of its commitment to spend $100 billion over three years to increase production, TSMC just announced plans to build a new manufacturing facility in Japan. Read more

An international move to eliminate digital-service taxes has gained momentum on news of an agreement between the U.S. and five European countries with whom it was polarized in its fight to retire the digital tax. Such taxes affect Big Tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. In all, 136 countries agreed to retool international corporate taxation at last week’s Fourth G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Washington, D.C. The deal immediately bans adding any new digital taxes, although the timing to implement reversal of existing taxes remains unclear. Read more

By the end of 2021, cybercrime will cost the world an estimated $6 trillion through 2021, a figure that will swell to $10.5 trillion by 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. To deal with that threat, Google has created the Cybersecurity Action Team (GCAT) and the Work Safer security bundle to help protect organizations, small businesses, enterprises and public sector institutions against cyberattacks. At Google Cloud Next ’21, the company said the Google Cybersecurity Action Team will draw on expertise from across the company to help protect entities from data breaches and help meet new government compliance rules. Read more