Економіка

Samsung Electronics said Friday it is cutting the production of its computer memory chips in an apparent effort to reduce inventory as it forecasted another quarter of sluggish profit. 

The South Korean technology giant, in a regulatory filing, said it has been reducing the production of certain memory products by unspecified “meaningful levels” to optimize its manufacturing operations, adding it has sufficient supplies of those chips to meet demand fluctuations. 

The company predicted an operating profit of $455 million for the three months through March, which would be a 96% decline from the same period a year earlier. It said sales during the quarter likely fell 19% to $47.7 billion. 

Samsung, which will release its finalized first quarter earnings later this month, said the demand for its memory chips declined as a weak global economy depressed consumer spending on technology products and forced business clients to adjust their inventories to nurse worsening finances. 

Samsung had reported a near 70% drop in profit for the October-December quarter, which partially reflected how global events like Russia’s war on Ukraine and high inflation have rattled technology markets. 

SK Hynix, another major South Korean semiconductor producer, said this week that it sold $1.7 billion in bonds that can be exchanged for the company’s shares to help fund its purchases of chipmaking materials as it weathers the industry’s downswing. SK Hynix had reported an operating loss of $1.28 billion for the October-December period, which marked its first quarterly deficit since 2012. 

“While we have lowered our short-term production plans, we expect solid demand for the mid- to long-term, so we will continue to invest in infrastructure to secure essential levels in clean room capacities and expand investment in research and development to strengthen our technology leadership,” Samsung said. 

Samsung last month announced plans to invest $227 billion over the next 20 years as part of an ambitious South Korean project to build the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing base near the capital, Seoul. 

The chip-making “mega cluster,” which will be established in Gyeonggi province by 2042, will be anchored by five new semiconductor plants built by Samsung near its existing manufacturing hub. It will aim to attract 150 other companies producing materials and components or designing high-tech chips, according to South Korea’s government. 

The South Korean plan comes as other technology powerhouses, including the United States, Japan and China, are building up their domestic chip manufacturing, deploying protectionist measures, tax cuts and sizeable subsidies to lure investments. 
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The last time humans were on the moon was in 1972. Now NASA is preparing to set foot back on the moon in 2025, if all goes as scheduled. VOA’s Alexander Kruglyakov spoke with the crew that will take part in the first of those missions: a planned flight around the Moon in November 2024.
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Darknet users, beware: If you frequent criminal marketplaces in the internet’s underbelly, think again. Chances are you’re in the FBI’s crosshairs.

The FBI is cracking down on sites that peddle everything from guns to stolen personal data, and it is not only going after the sites’ administrators but also their users.

A recent surge in ransomware attacks and other malicious cyber activities has fueled the effort to shut down services that cater to online criminals.

But the strategy hasn’t been always effective. With each takedown, a new iteration pops up drawing users with it. Which is why the FBI is eyeing both the operators and users of these sites.

“We’re not only trying to attack the supply side, but we’re also attacking the demand side with the users,” a senior FBI official said during a Wednesday briefing on the agency’s takedown of Genesis Market, a large online criminal marketplace. “There’s consequences if you’re going to be using these types of sites to engage in this type of activity.”

The darknet, the hidden part of the internet that can only be accessed by a special browser, has long been home to various criminal marketplaces and forums.

One type of criminal marketplace there specializes in buying and selling illegal items, such as drugs, firearms and fraudulently obtained gift cards.

Another type of market trades in sensitive data, such as stolen credit cards, bank account details and other information that can be used for criminal activity. These sites are known as “data stores.”

In recent years, a new breed of cyber criminals has emerged. Known as “initial access brokers,” these criminals specialize in selling access to compromised computer networks. Among their customers: ransomware gangs.

The takedown on Tuesday of Genesis Market, a 5-year-old criminal marketplace described by officials as an “initial access broker,” offers a window into this type of cyber-criminal activity.

It also shows how the FBI is increasingly going after users of criminal marketplaces and not just their administrators.

U.S. officials said Genesis Market was not only a seller of stolen account access credentials but was also “one of the most prolific” initial access brokers operating on the darknet.

Describing it as a “key enabler of ransomware,” the Justice Department said Genesis Market sold “the type of access sought by ransomware actors to attack computer networks in the United States and around the world.”

The site went dark on Tuesday after the FBI, working with law enforcement agencies in nearly 20 countries, including the U.K. and Canada, took it offline and arrested nearly 120 people.

In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed the operation as “an unprecedented takedown of a major criminal marketplace that enabled cybercriminals to victimize individuals, businesses, and governments around the world.”

Genesis is one of two popular cyber-criminal marketplaces taken down by the FBI in the past month.

In March, the FBI shut down Breach Forums, a criminal forum and marketplace that boasted more than 340,000 members. On the Breach Forums website, users discussed tools and techniques for hacking and exploiting hacked information, according to the Justice Department.

“We’re going after the users who leverage a service like Genesis Market, and we are doing that on a global scale,” the FBI official said.

To take down Genesis Market, the FBI and its international law enforcement partners seized its servers and domains.

In doing so, the FBI was able to obtain information about 59,000 individual user accounts, a senior Justice Department official said during the briefing.

The information included usernames, passwords, email accounts, secure messenger accounts and user histories, the official said.

“And those records helped law enforcement uncover the true identities of many of the users,” the official said.

The users ran the gamut from online fraudsters to ransomware criminals.

Some of the users were in the U.S., officials said, declining to provide any other details about them. They were among the 119 people arrested around the world in connection with Genesis Market takedown.
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