Tech Voices: Microsoft’s SharePoint crisis, OpenAI’s Altman, Uber

Seeking Alpha’s daily roundup of statements, remarks and announcements that could impact the technology sector.

• Over 400 companies, government agencies and organizations have now fallen victim to hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) SharePoint software, according to security firm Eye Security.

Eye Security’s estimate was derived from the number of digital artifacts detected during scans of servers running vulnerable versions of the software. The firm added that the figure is likely an undercount, Reuters reported Wednesday.

“There are many more, because not all attack vectors have left artifacts that we could scan for,” said Eye Security’s chief hacker, Vaisha Bernard, according to Reuters.

Bloomberg reported previously that the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the U.S.’s nuclear stockpile, was one of the organizations that was breached.

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said bad actors utilizing AI to impersonate others could trigger a “fraud crisis” for society in general and the banking sector in particular.

“A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept a voice print as authentication for you to move a lot of money or do something else — you say a challenge phrase, and they just do it,” Altman said during a presentation on AI at the Federal Reserve late Tuesday, according to CNN.

“That is a crazy thing to still be doing… AI has fully defeated most of the ways that people authenticate currently, other than passwords,” Altman added.

OpenAI, which was co-founded by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, is best known for its chatbot ChatGPT.

• Uber (NYSE:UBER) has launched a pilot program in the U.S. that allows women drivers to be matched with women passengers and vice versa.

“Across the U.S., women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips. We’ve heard them—and now we’re introducing new ways to give them even more control over how they ride and drive,” said Camiel Irving, Uber’s vice president of operations for the U.S. and Canada, in a statement.

Irving added that the new Women’s Preference features on the Uber platform are “designed to give women riders and drivers more choice, more confidence, and more flexibility when they use Uber.”