Growing global demand for chips has semiconductor companies scrambling to hire engineers and other skilled workers in the U.S. amid a nationwide labor shortage and international supply chain disruptions, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill reports.

Why it matters: A labor shortage could dampen the U.S. semiconductor industry's expected growth, just as policymakers are trying to boost funding for domestic manufacturing.

Driving the news: Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger will stress the importance of building a tech talent pipeline as part of his testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

• Intel has nearly 2,500 job postings for engineers in the U.S., and that need is expected to increase if Congress passes a $52 billion funding package for domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
• "The most important, and one of the most vulnerable, supply chains the American semiconductor industry is facing today, is the supply chain of human talents," Mung Chiang, executive vice president of Purdue University for strategic initiatives and the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering, told Axios.

By the numbers: Job postings for electrical engineers in the U.S. semiconductor industry grew 78% from 2020 to 2021, more than three times faster than growth for electrical engineers overall, according to data from Emsi Burning Glass.

• "We really saw that there's the makings for a perfect storm of hiring difficulties," Will Markow, Emsi's vice president of applied research-talent, told Axios, pointing to increased demand and the specialized skills required.

State of play: The demand for highly skilled workers is projected to rise, but the semiconductor industry has not been the top destination for U.S. students graduating with math and science degrees.

• "The total number of STEM-oriented students in this country is not big enough already, and the slice of that pie going into semiconductors is also not the most promising," Chiang said.

What they're saying: MediaTek, a Taiwanese company that develops chips, is trying to grow its U.S. presence, but its plans are hampered by the shortage of skilled talent, vice president of U.S. government relations Patrick Wilson told Axios.

• "For that special subset of skilled technologists, there is intense competition," Wilson said. "It's akin to the NFL or Major League Baseball."
• Semiconductor company AMD hired roughly 1,000 engineers in the U.S. last year, and expects to hire about 1,900 this year, a company spokesperson told Axios.
• "What we're finding is it's extremely difficult to find the skills that we need," AMD chief technology officer Mark Papermaster said during a panel for Purdue University in November. 

A hacking group that previously took responsibility for attacks on Nvidia and Microsoft claimed Monday that it had compromised Okta, which provides identity services to thousands of companies, Axios' Scott Rosenberg reports.

Driving the news: Tuesday Okta confirmed an incident in January that used a customer support worker employed by a third-party company to gain some access to Okta's systems.

Why it matters: Okta is little-known outside of the industry, but provides a layer of login security for hundreds of millions of users at a wide array of firms and organizations that adopt its login system.

Of note: As Wired reports, security experts are already drawing comparisons to the SolarWinds incident of late 2020.

Details: On Monday night the group known as Lapsus$ posted screenshots dated from January showing it had access to the support account.

• Tuesday, Okta chief security officer David Bradbury published a blog post noting that a forensics report concluded "there was a five-day window of time between Jan. 16–21, 2022, where an attacker had access to a support engineer's laptop." 
• In an update last night, Bradbury said Okta had "concluded that a small percentage of customers — approximately 2.5% — have potentially been impacted and whose data may have been viewed or acted upon. We have identified those customers and are contacting them directly."

What they're saying: "The Okta service has not been breached and remains fully operational. There are no corrective actions that need to be taken by our customers," Bradbury's initial post read.

Yes, but: We don't know yet what information Lapsus$ might have taken during those five days, and what the group might have done with it since.

Catch up quick: In past incidents, Lapsus$ has tried to extort corporations by threatening to post stolen source code and other kinds of business information.

• The group has also posted some of the code that runs Microsoft's Bing search engine and Cortana personal assistant, in a dump of about 37 GB of data.
• Tuesday, Microsoft confirmed that the group had gained access to the code after "a single account had been compromised, granting limited access."

A new social network, backed by AARP, aims to bring seniors together, focusing on discussions around common interests.

Why it matters: While some may joke that Facebook is already the social network for seniors, the new effort aims to offer a community explicitly for older Americans looking to connect with one another.

Details: Senior Planet Community, launching today after a month of private testing, is the creation of Senior Planet — a nonprofit affiliated with and partly funded by AARP.

• The social network's approach is something of a return to the early days of online services, with message boards centered on topics such as gardening, fitness and photography.
• Senior Planet Community is fully non-commercial, with no advertising or fees.

Between the lines: Senior Planet started offering in-person tech classes at a single senior center in New York. It had expanded to four centers before the pandemic and then shifted heavily into online classes, with the social network evolving out of that.

What they're saying: Tom Kamber, executive director of Senior Planet, said initial goals for the service are modest. "I do think eventually it would be great if we had a million people. Right now I'd be really happy to have 100,00 people using it well."

Venerable Seattle software maker RealNetworks is making its first foray into hardware, with a face recognition system businesses can use to control entry to doors.

Why it matters: Keycards remain the dominant system for controlling building access, but remain vulnerable to card swapping, tailgating and other workarounds.

Details:

• SAFR SCAN, as the device is known, evolved from the company's existing computer vision and face recognition work.
• RealNetworks said that the device can scan 30 people per minute and won't be tricked by someone holding up a photo of an authorized user.
• The device is made in the U.S. and will sell for $1,199 when it begins shipping in May.

What they're saying: CEO Rob Glaser declined to say how many people are working on SAFR SCAN, but said, "It's a significant initiative."

On Tap

• Game Developers Conference continues in San Francisco, while Nvidia's GTC continues online.

Trading Places

• Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan is stepping down after some "personal reflection," with COO Sean Leow acting as interim CEO.
• Dan Ammann, former CEO of GM-controlled autonomous vehicle company Cruise, is joining ExxonMobil.
• OpenSea has hired Loni Mahanta as their new VP of policy and government affairs. She held a similar post at Zillow Group.

ICYMI

• Netflix launches two new mobile games as part of its expansion beyond video. (Axios)
• Minority-owned businesses have lagged in the pandemic recovery, according to a new report from Meta. (Axios)
• For the second day in a row, a number of Apple's online services experienced outages. (Reuters)

Today in tweets that didn't age well.