One important thing: Alibaba plans to split its business into six main units, marking the biggest overhaul at the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut since its inception in 1999.

• The restructuring would allow each business to pursue its own fundraising and public listing plans, said Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang
  
  
• The move comes a day after Alibaba founder Jack Ma returned to China after spending almost a year overseas

In today’s newsletter: 

• GitHub lays off entire India engineering team
• Coinbase, Binance face regulatory scrutiny
• Why website security is a headache for govt

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Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce: These large technology firms share an unfortunate common thread - a series of massive layoffs within their respective companies.

The consequences are now becoming apparent for their subsidiaries and international operations.

Microsoft-owned GitHub has joined the growing list of companies reducing their workforce in response to a post-pandemic decline in demand, as businesses aim to cut costs.

• The code repository platform laid off 142 people from its engineering team as well as some from its Programs and Product team in India, according to people aware of the matter. Some say about 180 people in total have been affected by these layoffs 

• Employees across offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and New Delhi were impacted, and only the sales and marketing department was unaffected, a laid-off employee told us

Employees were informed early on March 27 about an urgent 9 am call. In separate meetings, the global heads of each team asked both employees and team leaders to resign by 5 pm that day.

“The head just said ‘your role has been eliminated’, read out a few FAQs (frequently asked queries) and said the HR (human resource) representative will connect with you one on one. They did not take any questions from us,” said a former employee, requesting anonymity.

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It has been a never-ending season of woes for the global crypto industry! In the span of just a week, two of the world's biggest crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, have come under the radar of US regulators.

Binance is facing legal action from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which filed a lawsuit on March 27 over multiple allegations including: 

• Illegally running a crypto derivatives platform in the US without registering with the CFTC
  
  
• Not implementing an effective anti-money laundering program
  
  
• The exchange couldn’t establish safeguards to the determine real identity of customers

Following the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been taking steps to identify and address problematic crypto tokens and digital currencies.

The US SEC issued a Wells notice to Coinbase last week, indicating that it is investigating whether the exchange has violated laws meant to protect investors. However, it's important to note that this notice is not the same as a lawsuit.

A Wells notice provides Coinbase with an opportunity to defend itself and dispute the allegations before facing any consequences. Meanwhile, Binance may be subject to hefty fines and other punishments without getting a jail term.

• These procedures are lengthy and it will take some time before we see their effects.

Read our explainer

The misconception that cyberattacks are mainly driven by invasive software like Pegasus is far from the truth. In fact, most cyberattacks stem from employees ignoring essential cybersecurity measures, like not addressing vulnerabilities and keeping systems up-to-date.

• The government is also well aware of this, as evidenced by the recently released guidelines on maintaining government websites

The guidelines drafted by the National Informatics Centre, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, and Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification recommend not giving high-level employees administrative access to websites, as they "do not think about website security."

It's vital to ensure employees have prior experience managing the back-end of websites before giving them access, as per the guidelines

“Employees come and go… Be sensible when it comes to user access,” said the guidelines.

These updated guidelines offer comprehensive directions for departments and developers to maintain the security of the government's vast array of websites, portals, and mobile apps.

• To ensure the security of websites, guidelines recommend regularly updating software, encrypting passwords and so on
  
  
• To improve database protection, it is advised to employ powerful encryption and efficient management systems

Go deeper

On this day in 1995, Kodak launched the DC40 camera, which was the second digital camera for consumers, following Apple's QuickTake 100 camera. 

It was Kodak's marketing strategy that largely contributed to the popularization of digital photography in the mid to late 1990s.

• Sam Bankman-Fried agreed to revised bail conditions with US prosecutors to avoid jail pending trial. The new conditions include using a basic laptop with limited functions and a new phone without internet, and no other electronic communication devices.
  
  
• Terraform Labs cofounder Do Kwon set up a company in Serbia for less than $1 just weeks after being issued an Interpol red notice.

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