Lead Software Engineer - Financial Wellness

Norton maker Gen Digital in talks to acquire GoDaddy in potential takeover, Financial Times reports. Daniel Levi Posted On September 24, 2026 Gen Digital, the cybersecurity company behind Norton and Avast, has approached GoDaddy about a potential acquisition that could bring one of the internet's largest domain registrars under the same roof as some of the best-known names in consumer security.The Financial Times reported Thursday that Gen Digital made an initial takeover approach to GoDaddy in recent weeks, citing people familiar with the matter. Discussions remain at an early stage, and there is no guarantee they will result in a deal. Financial terms have not been disclosed. "GoDaddy receives takeover offer from maker of Norton antivirus software. Talks between web domain provider and Gen Digital at early stage but could allow acquirer to broaden its business beyond cyber security," Financial Times reported. Investors reacted immediately. GoDaddy shares jumped sharply following the report, rising more than 10% at one point, with trading briefly halted for volatility. Gen Digital shares moved in the opposite direction, falling around 7% after the news surfaced. Before the report, Gen Digital had a market value of roughly $15.7 billion, and GoDaddy was valued at about $12.2 billion. That makes any potential transaction a major bet for Gen Digital, not a routine bolt-on acquisition. Why GoDaddy could fit Gen Digital. Gen Digital has spent years building a collection of consumer internet brands. The company was formed in 2022 through the merger of NortonLifeLock and Avast and now owns brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock and MoneyLion. Gen reported $5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2026 and had 81 million paid customers as of July. GoDaddy would give that portfolio something different: a direct connection to millions of businesses, entrepreneurs and website owners. The company serves more than 20 million customers and manages roughly 81 million domains, according to figures cited in reports about the takeover approach. That customer base could give Gen Digital a much larger channel for selling security, identity protection, privacy and other digital services. That helps explain why the deal would represent more than a cybersecurity company buying a domain registrar. GoDaddy sits at the starting point for many businesses going online. Customers come to the company to register domains, build websites, buy hosting, set up email and sell products. Gen Digital operates further along the same digital chain, protecting devices, identities, accounts and personal information. Combining those businesses could give Gen a much broader role in how consumers and small businesses establish and protect their online presence. The timing is notable for another reason. GoDaddy shares have faced pressure this year amid investor questions about how artificial intelligence could reshape website creation and other services that have traditionally supported its business. TechStartups covered GoDaddy back in December 2021, when activist investor Starboard Value LP disclosed a 6.5% stake in the company worth about $800 million. The Wall Street Journal reported the investment at the time, citing a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In February, the company forecast annual revenue below Wall Street expectations as adoption of its AI-related products developed more slowly than expected. Gen Digital has been moving deeper into AI itself. The company has introduced AI-focused security products and partnered with xAI to bring Grok models into consumer products such as Norton Neo. A GoDaddy acquisition would push Gen far beyond its antivirus roots and place it deeper inside the infrastructure millions of businesses use to operate online. For now, the deal remains just that: a potential deal. The companies' size, the financing required, and the early stage of negotiations leave plenty of room for talks to end without an agreement. The market's reaction shows investors are paying attention.

Gen Digital's COO, CLO, and Secretary Bryan Seuk Ko sold 28,248 shares of common stock on 4 September 2026, according to an SEC Form 4 filing. The transaction was valued at approximately $866,000, based on a weighted average sale price of $30.67 per share. The sale was executed through a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on 5 June 2026, which allows for scheduled transactions without direct intervention. The shares sold represented 4% of Ko's direct common stock position. Following the transaction, Ko retains 744,262 shares, representing a 0.12% ownership stake in the company. Gen Digital's stock delivered a 5.9% total return over the 12 months ending on the transaction date. Gen Digital provides cybersecurity solutions through its Norton 360 platform, with a market capitalisation of $17.9bn and trailing twelve-month revenue of $5.1bn.

Nightmare Eclipse drops CrowdStrike, Nvidia, Avast zero-day exploits. Tue, 09/08/2026 - 10:36 / 0 Comments The security researcher known as Nightmare Eclipse has dropped three zero-day exploits targeting products from Avast, CrowdStrike, and Nvidia. Also known as Chaotic Eclipse, Infinite Nightmare, and MSNightmare, the security researcher came to fame for a series of zero-day exploits targeting Microsoft's products, but has recently moved to other vendors as well. In late August, Nightmare Eclipse released a privilege escalation zero-day in a Kaspersky endpoint security product. Dubbed HardBreacher, the exploit has been patched by Kaspersky on August 31. Within a short window last week, Nightmare Eclipse dropped three new zero-day exploits, dubbed PrettyPrague, FalconFlank, and GreenSection. The PrettyPrague proof-of-concept (PoC) code, the researcher says, targets the Avast sandbox to spawn a shell with full system privileges, and may also affect other GenDigital products, including AVG and Norton. "Gen was recently made aware of a security vulnerability affecting a subset of Gen products, including Avast Antivirus, that could allow an attacker to elevate their system privileges. We immediately initiated our security response procedures and have fixed the issue. We take all security matters seriously and encourage users to keep their products up to date to ensure they are protected," a GenDigital spokesperson said, responding to a SecurityWeek inquiry. FalconFlank exploits a bug in the Office malicious macros remediation feature of CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor for privilege escalation, the researcher says. "We are actively investigating these claims and advise customers to disable the Microsoft Office File Suspicious Macro Removal Windows policy setting. Customers remain protected through the Cloud Anti-malware for Microsoft Office Files settings. We refer customers to the FalconFlank Tech Alert in the CrowdStrike support portal," CrowdStrike told SecurityWeek. The GreenSection exploit, Nightmare Eclipse says, targets an out-of-bounds memory write affecting a shared global memory section used by multiple Nvidia user-mode components. "While this bug does not get SYSTEM privileges immediately, it can be used cross user to user boundary easily or even compromise the dwm.exe process. I didn't look deeply into it, but I'd be happy to see someone making a full exploit out of it," Nightmare Eclipse notes. "We are aware of reports describing a proof-of-concept that demonstrates improper access controls on a shared memory section used by certain NVIDIA GPU display driver components on Windows. NVIDIA is reviewing the reported behavior through our established security and product engineering processes. NVIDIA takes reports of this nature seriously and is actively investigating to determine the root cause, affected configurations, and appropriate remediation," an Nvidia spokesperson said. Security researcher Kevin Beaumont said late last week that the Avast, CrowdStrike, and Kaspersky exploits work. Add new comment. * No HTML tags allowed. * Lines and paragraphs break automatically. * Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically. CAPTCHA This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. 8 + 2 = Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.