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The National Institute of Standards and Technology Braces for Mass Firings
Approximately 500 NIST staffers, including at least three lab directors, are expected to lose their jobs at the standards agency as part of the ongoing DOGE purge, sources tell WIRED...
DeepSeek’s Popular AI App Is Explicitly Sending US Data to China
Amid ongoing fears over TikTok, Chinese generative AI platform DeepSeek says it’s sending heaps of US user data straight to its home country, potentially setting the stage for greater scrutiny...
How the US TikTok Ban Would Actually Work
The fate of TikTok now rests in the hands of the US Supreme Court. If a law banning the social video app this month is upheld, it won’t disappear from your phone—but it will get messy fast...
The Invisible Russia-Ukraine Battlefield
In Russia’s war against Ukraine, electronic warfare, including signal-jamming, anti-drone weapons, and innovative protections for critical military systems, has become a key piece of the conflict...
Microsoft’s AI Recall Tool Is Still Sucking Up Credit Card and Social Security Numbers
Plus: The US indicts North Koreans in fake IT worker scheme, file-sharing firm Cleo warns customers to patch a vulnerability amid live attacks, and more...
Top US Consumer Watchdog Has a Plan to Fight Predatory Data Brokers
A new proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would use a 54-year-old privacy law to impose new oversight of the data broker industry. But first, the agency must survive Elon Musk...
The Real Problem With Banning Masks at Protests
Privacy advocates worry banning masks at protests will encourage harassment, while cops’ high-tech tools render the rules unnecessary...
Man Arrested for Snowflake Hacking Spree Faces US Extradition
Alexander “Connor” Moucka was arrested this week by Canadian authorities for allegedly carrying out a series of hacks that targeted Snowflake’s cloud customers. His next stop may be a US jail...
Millions of Vehicles Could Be Hacked and Tracked Thanks to a Simple Website Bug
Researchers found a flaw in a Kia web portal that let them track millions of cars, unlock doors, and start engines at will—the latest in a plague of web bugs that’s affected a dozen carmakers...
Iranian Hackers Tried to Give Hacked Trump Campaign Emails to Dems
Plus: The FBI dismantles the largest-ever China-backed botnet, the DOJ charges two men with a $243 million crypto theft, Apple’s MacOS Sequoia breaks cybersecurity tools, and more...
A Creative Trick Makes ChatGPT Spit Out Bomb-Making Instructions
Plus: New evidence emerges about who may have helped 9/11 hijackers, UK police arrest a teen in connection with an attack on London’s transit system, and Poland’s spyware scandal enters a new phase...
Want to Win a Bike Race? Hack Your Rival’s Wireless Shifters
Please don’t, actually. But do update your Shimano Di2 shifters’ software to prevent a new radio-based form of cycling sabotage...
Huge Microsoft Outage Linked to CrowdStrike Takes Down Computers Around the World
A software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike appears to have inadvertently disrupted IT systems globally...
The Tech Crash Course That Trains US Diplomats to Spot Threats
The US State Department is training diplomats in cybersecurity, privacy, telecommunications, and other technology issues, allowing them to advance US policy abroad...
Deepfake Creators Are Revictimizing GirlsDoPorn Sex Trafficking Survivors
The most notorious deepfake sexual abuse website is hosting altered videos originally published as part of the GirlsDoPorn operation. Experts say this new low is only the beginning...
The Snowflake Attack May Be Turning Into One of the Largest Data Breaches Ever
The number of alleged hacks targeting the customers of cloud storage firm Snowflake appears to be snowballing into one of the biggest data breaches of all time...
The Lords of Silicon Valley Are Thrilled to Present a ‘Handheld Iron Dome’
ZeroMark wants to build a system that will let soldiers easily shoot a drone out of the sky with the weapons they’re already carrying—and venture capital firm a16z is betting the startup can pull it off...
How Donald Trump Could Weaponize US Surveillance in a Second Term
Donald Trump has vowed to go after political enemies, undocumented immigrants, and others if he wins. Experts warn he could easily turn the surveillance state against his targets...
House Votes to Extend—and Expand—a Major US Spy Program
The US House of Representatives voted on Friday to extend the Section 702 spy program. It passed without an amendment that would have required the FBI to obtain a warrant to access Americans’ information...
A Vigilante Hacker Took Down North Korea’s Internet. Now He’s Taking Off His Mask
As “P4x,” Alejandro Caceres single-handedly disrupted the internet of an entire country. Then he tried to show the US military how it can—and should—adopt his methods...
Automakers Are Telling Your Insurance Company How You Really Drive
Plus: The operator of a dark-web cryptocurrency “mixing” service is found guilty, and a US senator reveals that popular safes contain secret backdoors...
Hackers Behind the Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack Just Received a $22 Million Payment
The transaction, visible on Bitcoin's blockchain, suggests the victim of one of the worst ransomware attacks in years may have paid a very large ransom...
Apple iOS 17.4: iMessage Gets Post-Quantum Encryption in New Update
Useful quantum computers aren’t a reality—yet. But in one of the biggest deployments of post-quantum encryption so far, Apple is bringing the technology to iMessage...
Leak of Russian ‘Threat’ Part of a Bid to Kill US Surveillance Reform, Sources Say
A surprise disclosure of a national security threat by the House Intelligence chair was part of an effort to block legislation that aimed to limit cops and spies from buying Americans' private data...
2054, Part VI: Standoff at Arlington
“This eruption of violence had been brewing for years, through successive economic collapses, pandemics, and the utter dysfunction that had become American life.” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...
How 3 Million ‘Hacked’ Toothbrushes Became a Cyber Urban Legend
Plus: China’s Volt Typhoon hackers lurked in US systems for years, the Biden administration’s crackdown on spyware vendors ramps up, and a new pro-Beijing disinformation campaign gets exposed...
I Stopped Using Passwords. It's Great—and a Total Mess
Passkeys are here to replace passwords. When they work, it’s a seamless vision of the future. But don’t ditch your old logins just yet...
Ransomware Payments Hit a Record $1.1 Billion in 2023
After a slowdown in payments to ransomware gangs in 2022, last year saw total ransom payouts jump to their highest level yet, according to a new report from crypto-tracing firm Chainalysis...
A Bloody Pig Mask Is Just Part of a Wild New Criminal Charge Against eBay
Plus: Chinese officials tracked people using AirDrop, Stuxnet mole’s identity revealed, AI chatbot hacking, and more...
23andMe Blames Users for Recent Data Breach as It's Hit With Dozens of Lawsuits
Plus: Russia hacks surveillance cameras as new details emerge of its attack on a Ukrainian telecom, a Google contractor pays for videos of kids to train AI, and more...
A New Trick Uses AI to Jailbreak AI Models—Including GPT-4
Adversarial algorithms can systematically probe large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 for weaknesses that can make them misbehave...
Telegram’s Bans on Extremist Channels Aren't Really Bans
A WIRED analysis of more than 100 restricted channels shows these communities remain active, and content shared within them often spreads to channels accessible to the public...
Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit From a Sexual Abuse Survivor
Omegle connected strangers to one another and had a long-standing problem of pairing minors with sexual predators. A legal settlement took it down...
Apple, Google, and Microsoft Just Patched Some Spooky Security Flaws
Plus: Major vulnerability fixes are now available for a number of enterprise giants, including Cisco, VMWare, Citrix, and SAP...
Maine Mass Shooting Disinformation Floods Social Media as Suspect Remains at Large
In the hours following the worst mass shooting in Maine’s history, disinformation about the suspected gunman flooded social media with false claims that he had been arrested...
The US Congress Has Trust Issues. Generative AI Is Making It Worse
Senators are meeting with Silicon Valley's elite to learn how to deal with AI. But can Congress tackle the rapidly emerging tech before working on itself?...
The Strange Afterlife of Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin
Posts praising the Wagner Group boss following his death in a mysterious plane crash last month indicate he was still in control of his "troll farm," researchers claim...
The Last Hour Before Yevgeny Prigozhin's Plane Crash
Russia tightly controls its information space—making it hard to get accurate information out of the country. But open source data provides some clues about the crash...
The Mystery of Chernobyl’s Post-Invasion Radiation Spikes
Soon after Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, sensors in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone reported radiation spikes. A researcher now believes he’s found evidence the data was manipulated...
Twitter Scammers Stole $1,000 From My Friend—So I Hunted Them Down
After scammers duped a friend with a hacked Twitter account and a “deal” on a MacBook, I enlisted the help of a fellow threat researcher to trace the criminals’ offline identities...
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...
The Messy US Influence That’s Helping Iranians Stay Online
Newly announced sanctions against Iran-based Avaran Cloud underscore the complexity of crafting Washington’s internet freedom efforts...
A Republican-Led Lawsuit Threatens Critical US Cyber Protections
Three states are suing to block security rules for water facilities. If they win, it may open the floodgates for challenges to other cyber rules...
Hacker Group Names Are Now Absurdly Out of Control
Pumpkin Sandstorm. Spandex Tempest. Charming Kitten. Is this really how we want to name the hackers wreaking havoc worldwide?...
How Good Smile, a Major Toy Company, Kept 4chan Online
Documents obtained by WIRED confirm that Good Smile, which licenses toy production for Disney, was an investor in the controversial image board...
They Posted Porn on Twitter. German Authorities Called the Cops
Regulators are using an AI system to scan websites and messaging apps to find pornography. Creators face fines and potential prison sentences...
A Privacy Hero's Final Wish: An Institute to Redirect AI's Future
Peter Eckersley did groundbreaking work to encrypt the web. After his sudden death, a new organization he founded is carrying out his vision to steer artificial intelligence toward “human flourishing.”...
What to Do When Your Boss Is Spying on You
Employee monitoring increased with Covid-19’s remote work—and stuck around for back-to-the-office...