Time For Amazon Employees To Move To Seattle And Other Hubs

Amazon made it clear to all its employees that it's time to get back to the office and work. The tech and retail trading giant is ordering corporate employees to move closer to their managers and teams, roiling a workforce already worried about job cuts and warnings from the top that artificial intelligence will shrink their ranks in the coming years.

Workers are being told to relocate to such cities as Seattle; Arlington, Virginia; and Washington DC, which in some cases would require them to move across the country, according to people familiar with the situation.

Amazon is mostly rolling out the mandate in one-on-one meetings and town halls rather than sending out a mass email, said the people, who requested anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss company plans.

One of the people said the relocation policy will affect thousands of employees on several teams. Mid-career professionals with children in school and partners in established careers are reluctant to make big moves in light of Amazon’s belt-tightening efforts.

An Amazon spokesperson said "for more than a year now, some teams have been working to bring their teammates closer together to help them be as effective as possible, but there isn’t a one-size-fits all approach and there hasn’t been a change in our approach as a company."

Amazon employees have been sharing information about the relocation mandate on the company’s internal slack channels, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. One employee said their manager informed the team of the need to relocate and told them they had 30 days to make a decision. Then they had 60 days to either resign or begin their relocation process, according to the person, who said they were told there would be no severance for employees who resigned in lieu of relocating.

The company spokesperson said "we hear from the majority of our teammates that they love the energy from being located together, and whenever someone chooses to or is asked to relocate, we work with them to offer support based on their individual circumstances."

When Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy ordered employees to return to the office five days a week beginning earlier this year, there was no requirement that they move to specific offices. Amazon has satellite workplaces around the country, including major metropolitan areas like New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas and Austin, giving workers some flexibility about where they lived. Many employees were hired to fully remote positions during the pandemic.

In 2022, Jassy initiated Amazon’s biggest-ever round of corporate job cuts, which ultimately eliminated 27,000 positions across the Seattle-based company. There have since been several smaller rounds of reductions targeting particular departments.

Telling workers to relocate will likely prompt some to quit, which can be a less expensive way to reduce headcount than executing layoffs and paying severance packages.

Read More

AI Is Forcing Amazon To Cut Jobs

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has a clear message about AI: It is going to "reduce" the company's workforce in the next few years.

"As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done," Jassy said in a memo posted to the Amazon website. "We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs."

"It's hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company," he continued.

Amazon currently employs about 1.5 million workers, according to its website. It is unclear how many employees, or in which sectors, would be affected by AI-driven job cuts.

Business Insider previously reported that the company is freezing its hiring budget for its retail business this year.

In a March earnings call, the company announced it would spend US$ 100 billion on capital expenditures, mostly driven by AI investments and data centers, Business Insider reported.

Jassy is not the first executive to suggest that advancements in AI will likely translate to job cuts in their businesses. The conversations around these types of reductions in force have become increasingly common — and less hypothetical.

Allison Kirkby, CEO of the British telecom giant BT, warned that AI may lead to further job cuts at the firm after BT in 2023 announced plans to eliminate as many as 55,000 roles by 2030, Business Insider previously reported.

In late May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei suggested AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said earlier this month that he expects the impact of AI on white-collar jobs to be so significant that it will lead to a recession.

"It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, project manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person — AI is coming for you," Micha Kaufman, the the CEO and founder of the freelance-job site x

Read More

Malware Hiding In Plain Sight Using Google's Link

There is a new browser-based malware campaign that surfaced recently, demonstrating how attackers are now exploiting trusted domains like Google.com to bypass traditional antivirus defenses.

A report from security researchers at c/side, this method is subtle, conditionally triggered, and difficult for both users and conventional security software to detect.

It appears to originate from a legitimate OAuth-related URL, but covertly executes a malicious payload with full access to the user's browser session.

The attack begins with a script embedded in a compromised Magento-based ecommerce site which references a seemingly harmless Google OAuth logout URL: https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/revoke.

However, this URL includes a manipulated callback parameter, which decodes and runs an obfuscated JavaScript payload using eval(atob(...)).

The use of Google’s domain is central to the deception - because the script loads from a trusted source, most content security policies (CSPs) and DNS filters allow it through without question.

This script only activates under specific conditions. If the browser appears automated or the URL includes the word "checkout," it silently opens a WebSocket connection to a malicious server. This means it can tailor malicious behavior to user actions.

Any payload sent through this channel is base64-encoded, decoded, and executed dynamically using JavaScript’s Function constructor.

The attacker can remotely run code in the browser in real time with this setup.

One of the primary factors influencing this attack's efficacy is its ability to evade many of the best antivirus programs currently on the market.

The script's logic is heavily obfuscated and only activates under certain conditions, making it unlikely to be detected by even the best Android antivirus apps and static malware scanners.

They will not inspect, flag, or block JavaScript payloads delivered through seemingly legitimate OAuth flows.

DNS-based filters or firewall rules also offer limited protection, since the initial request is to Google’s legitimate domain.

In the enterprise environment, even some of the best endpoint protection tools may struggle to detect this activity if they rely heavily on domain reputation or fail to inspect dynamic script execution within browsers.

While advanced users and cybersecurity teams may use content inspection proxies or behavioral analysis tools to identify anomalies like these, average users are still vulnerable.

Limiting third-party scripts, separating browser sessions used for financial transactions, and remaining vigilant about unexpected site behaviors could all help reduce risk in the short term.

One of the primary factors influencing this attack's efficacy is its ability to evade many of the best antivirus programs currently on the market.

Read More

Several Journalists' Email Accounts May Be Compromised

The Washington Post is investigating a cyberattack on email accounts of some of its journalists, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters last 15 June.

There has been a possible unauthorized targeted intrusion affecting a few journalists, the source said. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the breach, said it was potentially the work of a foreign government.

According to the report, staffers at The Washington Post were told the intrusions compromised journalists' Microsoft accounts and could have granted the intruder access to work emails.

The reporters whose emails were targeted included members of the national security and economic policy teams, including some who write about China, the report added.

Matt Murray, The Washington Post's executive editor, said in an internal memo that the investigation was initiated after the breach was discovered a few days earlier, the WSJ reported.

In 2022, News Corp, which publishes the WSJ, was breached by digital intruders. The email accounts and data of an unspecified number of journalists were compromised in that incident.

Read More

Are Tattoos The New Wearables?

Inks or tattoos can reveal a lot about a person. Hopefully, in the future, they can even reveal a person's brain waves. At least, that's the goal for researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.

"This tattoo is not like a normal tattoo," Nanshu Lu, a professor in the university's Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, told Business Insider.

Lu worked alongside engineering professor Luis Sentis and others to develop an ultra-thin, wireless wearable device that she compared to a temporary tattoo sticker. The non-invasive device, applied to the skin with an adhesive, measures brain activity and eye movement to gauge an individual's mental workload.

Lu said the device is intended for people working in high-stakes or high-demand jobs, such as aircraft pilots, air traffic controllers, drone operators, and robot teleoperators. These jobs could be considered high-stress since they require focus, quick-thinking skills, and a small margin for error.

"Technology is developing much faster than human evolution, so it is very hard to keep up with the technological demand in modern jobs," she said. "Therefore, it's very important not to overload the operator because not only would that jeopardize the outcome of the mission, it would also harm their health."

Although the idea of an electronic tattoo might sound like something out of a sci-fi novel, humans and technology have been melding for a while.

Nearly 40 years ago, for example, the first fully digital hearing aid became available to the public, according to the Hearing Health Foundation. And now, Elon Musk is embedding computer chips into people's brains through his company, Neuralink.

Recent wearable tech inventions include smartwatches, Bluetooth headphones, VR headsets, and fitness trackers, to name a few. Some health-conscious folks invest in wearable technology like the Oura Ring, which collects data on everything from sleep activity to body temperature.However, those devices don't analyze brain activity and eye movement.

"Over the years, we developed a series of non-invasive skin conformable e-tattoos to measure cardiovascular health, then measure the mental stress from the palm sweating," Lu said of previous devices she helped develop. "Now, finally, we move on to the brainwave."

Lu said the device certainly isn't the first or only EEG sensor on the market, but it's smaller and lighter than previous models. Conducting an EEG test typically requires attaching electrodes to an individual's full scalp with a gel or paste to collect data, which can be time-consuming.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are attempting to streamline that process by proving mental workload can be measured only from the forehead. During lab tests, participants did memorization drills that involved a screen with flashing boxes.

"In the past, there was no way to objectively assess mental workload. The subjects have to finish the test and then a questionnaire," Lu said. "But in the future, if we can implement some lightweight machine learning model directly on a microprocessor in the Bluetooth chip on e-tattoo, then yes, our goal is to one day be able to do it in real time."

A report by Grand View Research said that the global wearable technology market was worth Us$ 84.2 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach US$ 186.14 billion by 2030, underscoring consumers' willingness to integrate technology into their everyday lives.

Read More