In a landmark ruling from the US Federal Trade Commission, non-compete clauses in employment agreements are no longer valid and all existing non-compete clauses are null and void starting in 120 days. The government argues that non-competes stifle wages and reduce the talent pool for companies to draw from. Businesses counter that argument with the need to protect intellectual property. The ruling came after nearly 26,000 public comments. After the ruling was issued, the US Chamber of Commerce immediately filed suit, challenging the ruling and the standing of the FTC to decide it. Similar action was expected from the National Labor Relations Board in the near future, with some saying the FTC action may have been a race to see who could get the news out the fastest.
1:00 – Supermicro Shows New X14 Servers at Intel Vision
At Intel Vision 2024, Supermicro unveiled a series of servers powered by Intel Xeon 6 and Intel Gaudi 3 chips, including the first OCP DC-MHS motherboard from a major vendor. This new standard extends the reach of OCP from accelerators and network cards to motherboards, but does this signify a shift away from proprietary designs?
Read More: Supermicro X14 Servers Shown at Intel Vision 2024 Including a Big Surprise
4:46 – PuTTY SSH Security Vulnerability
A big vulnerability in PuTTY could allow attackers to retrieve keys. The setup for the attack is pretty specific. It requires you to be running specific versions of Windows and using elliptical curve encryption techniques. However, if you’re running those affected versions the private encryption key for your system could be stolen. It could also lead to supply chain attacks. The insidious part is that the key can also be retrieved if you use it to sign commits to public Git repositories.
Read More: PuTTY SSH client flaw allows recovery of cryptographic private keys
7:37 – Micron to Recieve $6 Billion in Chip Funding
The US earmarked about $30 billion of CHIPS Act funding to support domestic semiconductor manufacturing, and we’ve reported on the amounts Intel, TSMC, and Samsung received. That haul left about $6 billion left in the fund, and that’s how much Micron is reported to receive.
Read More: Micron Poised to Get Over $6 Billion in Chips Grants in Announcement Next Week
12:05 – BMC Set to Acquire Netreo
BMC is picking up observability company Netreo. BMC is excited about the full-stack observability solution from Netreo and how it offers a glimpse into networks and applications. Netreo also utilizes OpenTelemetry for their solution, which is an area that BMC is looking to grow. The goal is to integrate the solution into BMC’s existing Helix AIOps platform.
Read More: BMC to Acquire Netreo
Red More from The Futurum Group’s Steven Dickens: BMC Scoops Up Netreo for Big Buy in IT Monitoring and Management
15:04 – IBM Closes In on Acquiring HashiCorp
Reuters is reporting that IBM is nearing a deal to acquire HashiCorp. The move is reported to be in furtherance of their cloud offerings. HashiCorp stocks surged on the rumors and pushed the market cap of the company past $6 billion. Neither party is commenting and Reuters mentioned that while talks are expected to be finalized in the coming days there is also a chance that no deal could come out of the reports.
Read More: IBM nearing deal for cloud software provider HashiCorp, source says
18:01 – Security Exploit Targeting VMware EXSi
The VMware by Broadcom ESXi hypervisor is being exploited again. This time, the attack involves an authentication bypass through compromised file upload. The zero day exploit in the Shell Service was uncovered on hacker forums this week and is apparently being actively used in the wild right now. There is a patch available to remedy the situation but questions remain about how companies that are not signed up for Service and Support contracts can obtain the patch.
Read More: VMware ESXi Shell Service Exploit on Hacking Forums: Patch Now
21:31 – FTC Bans Non-Compete Clauses
In a landmark ruling from the US Federal Trade Commission, non-compete clauses in employment agreements are no longer valid and all existing non-compete clauses are null and void starting in 120 days. The government argues that non-competes stifle wages and reduce the talent pool for companies to draw from. Businesses counter that argument with the need to protect intellectual property. The ruling came after nearly 26,000 public comments. After the ruling was issued, the US Chamber of Commerce immediately filed suit, challenging the ruling and the standing of the FTC to decide it. Simliar action was expected from the National Labor Relations Board in the near future, with some saying the FTC action may have been a race to see who could get the news out the fastest.
Read More: U.S. Chamber to Sue FTC Over Unlawful Power Grab on Noncompete Agreements Ban
Read More: After 26,000 public comments, FTC to vote on rule banning noncompete agreements
32:32 – The Weeks Ahead
Mobile Field Day 11 – May 15 – 16
AppDev Field Day 1 – May 29 – 30
Tech Field Day Experience at Qlik Connect – June 3 – 5
The Six Five Summit – June 11 – 13
Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day are now part of The Futurum Group.
The Gestalt IT Rundown is your look at the IT news of the week. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
