In Brief: BellTrox spied on global govt officials, investors for seven years; TechM launches mPAC 3.0

New Delhi based BellTroX InfoTech Services targeted several government officials in Europe, gambling tycoons in the Bahamas and investors in the United States, according to a Reuters report citing former employees. The investors include prominent players in the space --  private equity giant KKR and short-seller Muddy Waters, the report said. The company reportedly offered its hacking services to help clients spy on more than 10,000 email accounts over a period of seven years, the report added.

Tech Mahindra launches mPAC 3.0

Pune-based information technology services firm Tech Mahindra on Thursday said it launched mPAC 3.0, a next-generation cloud management platform for enterprises globally, across a multi-cloud and hybrid enterprise management environment. mPAC 3.0, which stands for Managed Platform for Adaptive Cloud, has four different models that support open source and diverse technology stacks, helping enterprises to manage and leverage native cloud capabilities and micro services based architectures, according to a statement.

Jio eyes TPG, Google, Microsoft for its next fundraising

Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms is looking at a few more major players in the technology and private equity space as its investors. United States-based TPG Capital is in active discussions with Jio Platforms, according to an Economic Times report, citing sources on Thursday. The entity, which has garnered well over $13 billion of investments in seven weeks, is also eyeing a choice between Google and Microsoft for the last few tranches of investment, according to a Business Insider report, citing sources on Monday.

Check Point Software launches CloudGuard

Israel headquartered cybersecurity solutions provider Check Point Software Technologies on Wednesday said it launched a fully-automated cloud platform to let customers protect their cloud deployments and workloads, and manage security. The platform called CloudGuard, which unifies cloud security posture management, serverless and container protection and threat intelligence, runs on Microsoft Azure, the statement added.

Ola mandates Covid-19 safety protocol for driver partners

Ride-hailing platform Ola on Thursday said it has mandated an exercise across over 500 fumigation centres in India to ensure sanitised vehicles of its driver partners. With the Covid-19 infection cases on the rise in the country, the Bengaluru based startup, in a statement, said that there will be mandatory fumigation of vehicles every 48 hours and a driver health-check, across over 200 cities. The startup has also mandated installing a transparent plastic screen to separate the driver and passenger seats, apart from other personal hygiene protocols.

IIFL launches initiative to fund Covid-19 affected fintech startups

Finance and investment services company IIFL on Thursday said it is scouting for fintech startups to invest in, and help the ventures tide over the Covid-19 crisis impact. The initiative titled #IIFLDisrupt will provide funds, become the first client, and enable access to mentors, the conglomerate said in a statement, adding that it also invites accelerators and incubators across India to collaborate.