How to Avoid the Worst Instagram Scams

Fake sellers. Competitions. Crypto cons. There are plenty of grifts on the platform, but you don’t have to get sucked in...

Cops Will Be Able to Scan Your Fingerprints With a Phone

Contactless fingerprinting uses a smartphone camera to capture your prints—and opens up a whole new set of privacy concerns...

Apple Just Killed the Password—for Real This Time

Apple’s iOS 16 and macOS Ventura will introduce passwordless login for apps and websites. It’s only the beginning...

Google May Owe You a Chunk of $100 Million

Plus: The US admits to cyber operations supporting Ukraine, SCOTUS investigates its own, and a Michael Flynn surveillance mystery is solved...

An Actively Exploited Microsoft Zero-Day Flaw Still Has No Patch

The company continues to downplay the severity of the Follina vulnerability, which remains present in all supported versions of Windows...

VPN Providers Threaten to Quit India Over New Data Law

The country has ordered companies operating VPNs to collect user data and hand it over to officials—but they’re refusing to do so...

How to Use Windows Security to Keep Your PC Protected

Your Microsoft computer comes with built-in safety software that shields you from the worst threats. Here's how to navigate your toolkit...

Netflix Can Cut Off Moochers Without a Password-Sharing Crackdown

There's a simple way to limit Netflix freeloaders—give users the ability to easily boot unknown devices linked to their accounts...

How Russia's Invasion Triggered a US Crackdown on Its Hackers

The Biden White House is using “all of the levers of national power” to counter—or preempt—cyberattacks by Russia’s most dangerous hacker groups...

A Developer Altered Open Source Software to Wipe Files in Russia

The author of a popular application pushed out an update containing malicious code in an effort to sabotage computers in the country...

Death of the Password? FIDO Alliance Reveals Its New Plan

After a decade of work, the FIDO Alliance says it’s found the missing piece in the bridge to a password-free future...

Beware the Never-Ending Disinformation Emergency

YouTube still draws a hard line on Trump’s rigged election claims. Two years later, it doesn't hold up...

Ukraine’s Volunteer ‘IT Army’ Is Hacking in Uncharted Territory

The country has enlisted thousands of cybersecurity professionals in the war effort against Russia...

An Optical Spy Trick Can Turn Any Shiny Object Into a Bug

Anything from a metallic Rubik’s cube to an aluminum trash can inside a room could give away your private conversations...

How to Use Google Chrome's Enhanced Safety Mode

You get a safer, more secure browser experience, but Google gets a lot more data about you...

Twitter Has Started Blocking Porn in Germany

Dozens of accounts have been vanished as Twitter bows to pressure to make it harder for children to find adult content online...

Microsoft Disabling Macros Is a Huge Win for Security

Word and Excel files you download from the internet just got a whole lot safer...

Health Sites Let Ads Track Visitors Without Telling Them

Privacy policies didn't tell the whole story about third-party tools gathering personal information from the sites of medical and genetic-testing companies...

Crypto.com Finally Admits It Lost $30 Million in a Hack

Plus: Scammer arrests, the NSA plays defense, and more of the week's top security news...

A Bug in iOS 15 Is Leaking User Browsing Activity in Real Time

Apple has known about the vulnerability, which also affects iPadOS 15 and Safari 15, since late November...

Russia Takes Down REvil Hackers—as Ukraine Tensions Mount

Over a dozen alleged members of the notorious ransomware group have been arrested, but the Kremlin's critics are wary of the underlying motivation...

Hackers Are Exploiting a Flaw Microsoft Fixed 9 Years Ago

Unless you go out of your way to install the patch, your system could be exposed...

6 Ways to Delete Yourself From the Internet

You’ll never be able to get a clean slate—but you can significantly downsize your digital footprint...

Someone Snuck a Card Skimmer Into Costco to Nab Shopper Data

Plus: A Robinhood breach, NSO Group spyware, and more of the week's top security news...

An Apparent Ransomware Hack Puts the NRA in a Bind

The group behind the reported attack is under sanctions from the US Treasury, which means a payout could come with penalties for the victim...

How to Permanently Delete Your Facebook Account

If you've finally hit your breaking point, here's how to say goodbye to Mark Zuckerberg's empire...

Why Ransomware Hackers Love a Holiday Weekend

Looking forward to Labor Day? So are ruthless gangs of cybercriminals...

A Bad Solar Storm Could Cause an 'Internet Apocalypse'

The undersea cables that connect much of the world would be hit especially hard by a coronal mass ejection...

How to Protect the Data on Your Laptop

Your laptop is a treasure trove of personal and sensitive information—make sure it's as secure as it can be...

Encryption-Busting EARN IT Act Advances in Senate

Plus: A massive crime bust in Europe, a warning from US Cyber Command, and more of the week's top security news...

Russian Hackers Went After San Francisco International Airport

Plus: Windows zero days, Covid-19 spam, and more of the week's top security news...

Voltage Hacking, Big Tech's 'Green' Data Score Card, and More News

Catch up on the most important news from today in two minutes or less...

How to Watch Twitter and Facebook Testify Before Congress Wednesday

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg will field questions about foreign interference, perceived bias, and more...

FBI Disrupts Chinese Proxy Tools Used in Mass Hacking of US Agencies and Infrastructure

China’s hacking campaign targeted NASA, the Federal Reserve, the US Senate, the Justice Department, and more, according to the DOJ...

CBP Workers Allegedly Used Government Databases to Spy on Exes, Crushes, and Colleagues

Records obtained by WIRED detail hundreds of allegations of Customs and Border Protection workers misusing internal tools to look up romantic interests and track colleagues’ cell phones...

Landmark Deal Would Officially Add Laser Weapons to US Army Arsenal

Facing a growing drone threat, the Pentagon is poised to sign a first-of-its-kind contract for “Enduring High Energy Lasers”—and make directed energy weapons an official part of the Army’s kit...

The ACLU Is Arming Lawyers to Expose State Surveillance Secrets

A new toolkit for attorneys in Massachusetts targets the technologies police use—and conceal—to build criminal cases, from facial recognition to AI-written police reports...

San Francisco Demands Apple and Google Delete AI ‘Nudify’ Apps From App Stores

The City Attorney’s Office sent the tech giants cease-and-desist letters this week telling them to stop profiting from 13 “face-swap” apps that are overwhelmingly used to target women and girls...

DHS Plans Experiment Running ‘Reconnaissance’ Drones Along the US-Canada Border

Autonomous drones and ground vehicles will stream “battlefield intelligence” over 5G along the US-Canada border in a bilateral DHS experiment this fall...

Telegram Is Still Hosting a Sanctioned $21 Billion Crypto Scammer Black Market

The UK designated Xinbi Guarantee as an enabler of crypto scammers and human trafficking weeks ago. Telegram is still hosting it in plain sight...

The FCC Has a Fast Lane for Complaints About Trump’s Media Critics

Internal emails obtained by WIRED reveal how a conservative legal group with a direct line into FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s office built the case against Jimmy Kimmel and his employees...

Border Patrol Agents Sold Challenge Coins With ‘Charlotte’s Web’ Characters in Riot Gear

Nonprofits run out of US Border Patrol stations are also selling other “operation”-themed coins that include a phrase popularized by the Proud Boys, potentially in violation of government rules...

‘Uncanny Valley’: Iran’s Threats on US Tech, Trump’s Plans for Midterms, and Polymarket’s Pop-up Flop

In this episode, we discuss Iran’s threats to target US tech firms, gear up for the midterm elections, and get a scene report from the Polymarket pop-up bar in DC...

Here’s Every Country Directly Impacted by the War on Iran

As the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate, more than a dozen countries in the region have reportedly been affected by air strikes...

How Vulnerable Are Computers to an 80-Year-Old Spy Technique? Congress Wants Answers

A pair of US lawmakers are calling for an investigation into how easily spies can steal information based on devices’ electromagnetic and acoustic leaks—a spying trick the NSA once codenamed TEMPEST...

US and Israel Launch Strikes Against Iran

US president Donald Trump said a “major combat operation” against Iran had begun as he called for the country’s government to be overthrown...

DHS Wants a Single Search Engine to Flag Faces and Fingerprints Across Agencies

Homeland Security aims to combine its face and fingerprint systems into one big biometric platform—after dismantling centralized privacy reviews and key limits on face recognition...

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance

From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we’ve collected experts’ tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group—even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful...

A Vast Trove of Exposed Social Security Numbers May Put Millions at Risk of Identity Theft

A database left accessible to anyone online contained billions of records, including sensitive personal data that criminals appear to have not yet exploited...

NASA’s Quiet Supersonic Jet Takes Flight

The X-59 successfully completed its inaugural flight—a step toward developing quieter supersonic jets that could one day fly customers more than twice as fast as commercial airliners...