New Sex Toy Standards Let Some Sensitive Details Slide

The industry now has official guidance on design, materials, and more, but not security and privacy best practices...

Hundreds of Scam Apps Hit Over 10 Million Android Devices

The so-called GriftHorse campaign used clever techniques to avoid detection in Google Play for nearly a year...

Dune Foresaw—and Influenced—Half a Century of Global Conflict

From Afghanistan to cyberattacks, Frank Herbert’s novel anticipated and shaped warfare as we know it...

How an Obscure Company Took Down Big Chunks of the Internet

You may not have heard of Fastly, but you felt its impact when sites didn’t load around the world Tuesday morning...

New Research Reveals the Hidden Downsides of Link Previews

The feature is convenient, but it can also leak sensitive data, consume bandwidth, and drain batteries. And some sites are worse than others...

Kids' Smartwatches Are a Security Nightmare Despite Years of Warnings

Five out of six brands tested by researchers would have allowed hackers to track kids—and in some cases eavesdrop on them...

Iranian Spies Accidentally Leaked Videos of Themselves Hacking

IBM’s X-Force security team obtained five hours of APT35 hacking operations, showing exactly how the group steals data from email accounts—and who it’s targeting...

A New Map Shows the Inescapable Creep of Surveillance

The Atlas of Surveillance shows which tech law enforcement agencies across the country have acquired. It's a sobering look at the present-day panopticon...

15 Billion Stolen Logins Are Circulating on the Dark Web

Plus: Facebook's Roger Stone takedown, the BlueLeaks server seizure, and more of the week's top security news...

Is It Legal for Cops to Force You to Unlock Your Phone?

Because the relevant Supreme Court precedents predate the smartphone era, the courts are divided on how to apply the Fifth Amendment...

How to Switch to Signal and Bring All your Texts With You

Thinking of boosting your SMS security by switching to Signal? These tips make sure your messages come with you—even to a new phone...

How to Clean Up Your Old Posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

These tips and tools will help you scrub your social media profiles clean, or give you a fresh start without giving up your username and followers...

Georgia’s Failure Shows How Not to Run an Election in the Pandemic

Limiting in-person polling sites makes it both harder to vote and more dangerous...

Clever Cryptography Could Protect Privacy in Covid-19 Contact-Tracing Apps

Researchers are racing to achieve the benefits of location-tracking without the surveillance...

A Cheap 3D Printer Can Trick Smartphone Fingerprint Locks

With a budget of just $2,000, researchers could fool biometric scanners 80 percent of the time...

Security Experts Unite Over the Right to Repair

Securepairs.org is pushing back against a tech industry that wants independent repair legislation to be scary...

Cyberspies Hijacked the Internet Domains of Entire Countries

A mysterious new group called Sea Turtle targeted 40 organizations in a DNS hijacking spree...

Everything You Should Do Before You Lose Your Phone

Misplacing your smartphone—or worse, having it stolen—is awful. But you can at least minimize the damage with a few easy steps...

An Obscure App Flaw Creates Backdoors In Millions of Smartphones

Researchers at the University of Michigan expose how an obscure feature of thousands of apps can give hackers remote access into your phone's most sensitive guts. The post An Obscure App Flaw Creates Backdoors In Millions of Smartphones appeared first on WIRED...

A Starter Guide to Protecting Your Data From Hackers and Corporations

Hackers. AI data scrapes. Government surveillance. Thinking about where to start when it comes to protecting your online privacy can be overwhelming. Here’s a simple guide for you—and anyone who claims they have nothing to hide...

ICE’s Deportation Airline Hack Reveals Man ‘Disappeared’ to El Salvador

Plus: A DOGE operative’s laptop reportedly gets infected with malware, Grok AI is used to “undress” women on X, a school software company’s ransomware nightmare returns, and more...

Tulsi Gabbard Reused the Same Weak Password on Multiple Accounts for Years

Now the US director of national intelligence, Gabbard failed to follow basic cybersecurity practices on several of her personal accounts, leaked records reviewed by WIRED reveal...

Cybersecurity Professor Faced China-Funding Inquiry Before Disappearing, Sources Say

A lawyer for Xiaofeng Wang and his wife says they are “safe” after FBI searches of their homes and Wang’s sudden dismissal from Indiana University, where he taught for over 20 years...

Cybersecurity Professor Mysteriously Disappears as FBI Raids His Homes

Xiaofeng Wang, a longtime computer science professor at Indiana University, has disappeared along with his wife, and their profiles on the school's website were wiped ahead of recent FBI raids...

Russian Spies Jumped From One Network to Another Via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

In a first, Russia's APT28 hacking group appears to have remotely breached the Wi-Fi of an espionage target by hijacking a laptop in another building across the street...

A US Company Enabled a North Korean Scam That Raised Money for WMDs

Wyoming’s secretary of state has proposed ways of “preventing fraud and abuse of corporate filings by commercial registered agents” in the aftermath of the scheme’s exposure...

‘Largest Botnet Ever’ Tied to Billions in Stolen Covid-19 Relief Funds

The US says a Chinese national operated the “911 S5” botnet, which included computers worldwide and was used to file hundreds of thousands of fraudulent Covid claims and distribute CSAM, among other crimes...

Microsoft Deploys Generative AI for US Spies

Plus: China is suspected in a hack targeting the UK’s military, the US Marines are testing gun-toting robotic dogs, and Dell suffers a data breach impacting 49 million customers...

‘TunnelVision’ Attack Leaves Nearly All VPNs Vulnerable to Spying

TunnelVision is an attack developed by researchers that can expose VPN traffic to snooping or tampering...

Roku Breach Hits 567,000 Users

Plus: Apple warns iPhone users about spyware attacks, CISA issues an emergency directive about a Microsoft breach, and a ransomware hacker tangles with an unimpressed HR manager named Beth...

DuckDuckGo Is Taking Its Privacy Fight to Data Brokers

Privacy-focused company DuckDuckGo is launching a tool to remove data from people-search websites, a VPN, and an identity theft restoration service...

You Should Update Apple iOS and Google Chrome ASAP

Plus: Microsoft patches over 60 vulnerabilities, Mozilla fixes two Firefox zero-day bugs, Google patches 40 issues in Android, and more...

Google Is Getting Thousands of Deepfake Porn Complaints

Content creators are using copyright laws to get nonconsensual deepfakes removed from the web. With the complaints covering nearly 30,000 URLs, experts say Google should do more to help...

WhatsApp Chats Will Soon Work With Other Encrypted Messaging Apps

New EU rules mean WhatsApp and Messenger must be interoperable with other chat apps. Here’s how that will work...

Notorious Spyware Maker NSO Group Is Quietly Plotting a Comeback

NSO Group, creator of the infamous Pegasus spyware, is spending millions on lobbying in Washington while taking advantage of the crisis in Gaza to paint itself as essential for global security...

US Lawmakers Want to Use a Powerful Spy Tool on Immigrants and Their Families

Legislation set to be introduced in Congress this week would extend Section 702 surveillance of people applying for green cards, asylum, and some visas—subjecting loved ones to similar intrusions...

Inside the Race to Secure the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix

Beyond the blinding speeds and sharp turns on new terrain, the teams at this weekend’s big F1 race are preparing for another kind of danger...

Apple's Encryption Is Under Attack by a Mysterious Group

Plus: Sony confirms a breach of its networks, US federal agents get caught illegally using phone location data, and more...

Risk of a US Government Shutdown Is Fueled by Very Online Republicans

Egged on by a far-reaching conservative media ecosystem, right-wing hardliners are forcing Washington to bend to their reality as the federal government careens toward a possible shutdown...

This Tool Lets Hackers Dox Almost Anyone in the US

The US Secret Service’s relationship with the Oath Keepers gets revealed, Tornado Cash cofounders get indicted, and a UK court says a teen is behind a Lapsus$ hacking spree...

How to Talk to Your Kids About Social Media and Mental Health

Here’s what the science really says about teens and screens—and how to start the conversation with young people of any age...

A New Attack Impacts ChatGPT—and No One Knows How to Stop It

Researchers found a simple way to make ChatGPT, Bard, and other chatbots misbehave, proving that AI is hard to tame...

Nude Videos of Kids From Hacked Baby Monitors Were Sold on Telegram

Plus: A fitness app may have leaked the location of a murdered submarine captain, the privacy risks of filing taxes online, and how Facebook data was used in an abortion trial...

The US Navy, NATO, and NASA Are Using a Shady Chinese Company’s Encryption Chips

The US government warns encryption chipmaker Hualan has suspicious ties to China’s military. Yet US agencies still use one of its subsidiary’s chips, raising fears of a backdoor...

The Bold Plan to Create Cyber 311 Hotlines

UT-Austin will join a growing movement to launch cybersecurity clinics for cities and small businesses that often fall through the cracks...

How AI Protects (and Attacks) Your Inbox

Criminals may use artificial intelligence to scam you. Companies, like Google, are looking for ways AI and machine learning can help prevent phishing...

China Hacks US Critical Networks in Guam, Raising Cyberwar Fears

Researchers say the state-sponsored espionage operation may also lay the groundwork for disruptive cyberattacks...

A Mysterious Group Has Ties to 15 Years of Ukraine-Russia Hacks

Kaspersky researchers have uncovered clues that further illuminate the hackers’ activities, which appear to have begun far earlier than originally believed...

Buffalo Mass Shooting Victims' Families Sue Meta, Reddit, Amazon

The families of victims of a mass shooting in Buffalo are challenging the platforms they believe led the attacker to carry out a racist massacre...

How To Delete Your Data From ChatGPT

OpenAI has new tools that give you more control over your information—although they may not go far enough...