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...

AI Found a Root Bug in Linux That Everyone Missed for 15 Years

Plus: The Pentagon is training amateurs to become part of its hacker army, a Flock license plate reader error led to cops surrounding a car reviewer, and more...

Dangerous New Linux Exploit Gives Attackers Root Access to Countless Computers

The exploit, dubbed CopyFail and tracked as CVE-2026-31431, allows hackers to take over PCs and data center servers. The Linux vulnerabilities have been patched—but many machines remain at risk...

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...

What the Huge AWS Outage Reveals About the Internet

Amazon Web Services experienced DNS resolution issues on Monday morning, taking down wide swaths of the web—and highlighting a long-standing weakness in the internet's infrastructure...

North Korean Scammers Are Doing Architectural Design Now

New research shows that North Koreans appear to be trying to trick US companies into hiring them to develop architectural designs using fake profiles, résumés, and Social Security numbers...

Data Brokers Face New Pressure for Hiding Opt-Out Pages From Google

After reporters found dozens of firms hiding privacy tools from search results, US senator Maggie Hassan insists the companies explain their practices—and pledge to improve access to privacy controls...

CBP's Predator Drone Flights Over LA Are a Dangerous Escalation

Customs and Border Protection flying powerful Predator B drones over Los Angeles further breaks the seal on federal involvement in civilian matters typically handled by state or local authorities...

Social Media Is Now a DIY Alert System for ICE Raids

The undocumented migrant community in the United States is using social networks and other digital platforms to send alerts about raids and the presence of immigration agents around the US...

Airlines Don’t Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS

A contract obtained by 404 Media shows that an airline-owned data broker forbids the feds from revealing it sold them detailed passenger data...

Deepfake Scams Are Distorting Reality Itself

The easy access that scammers have to sophisticated AI tools means everything from emails to video calls can’t be trusted...

See How Much Faster a Quantum Computer Will Crack Encryption

A quantum computer will likely one day be able to break the encryption protecting the world's secrets. See how much faster such a machine could decrypt a password compared to a present-day supercomputer...

US Border Agents Are Asking for Help Taking Photos of Everyone Entering the Country by Car

Customs and Border Protection has called for tech companies to pitch real-time face recognition technology that can capture everyone in a vehicle—not just those in the front seats...

North Korea Stole Your Job

For years, North Korea has been secretly placing young IT workers inside Western companies. With AI, their schemes are now more devious—and effective—than ever...

This ‘College Protester’ Isn’t Real. It’s an AI-Powered Undercover Bot for Cops

Massive Blue is helping cops deploy AI-powered social media bots to talk to people they suspect are anything from violent sex criminals all the way to vaguely defined “protesters.”...

Here’s What Happened to Those SignalGate Messages

A lawsuit over the Trump administration’s infamous Houthi Signal group chat has revealed what steps departments took to preserve the messages—and how little they actually saved...

Homeland Security Email Tells a US Citizen to ‘Immediately’ Self-Deport

An email sent by the Department of Homeland Security instructs people in the US on a temporary legal status to leave the country. But who the email actually applies to—and who actually received it—is far from clear...

The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

Romance scams cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As people grow increasingly isolated, and generative AI helps scammers scale their crimes, the problem could get worse...

Biden's Cyber Ambassador Urges Trump Not to Cede Ground to Russia and China in Global Tech Fight

Nathaniel Fick, the ambassador for cyberspace and digital policy, has led US tech diplomacy amid a rising tide of pressure from authoritarian regimes. Will the Trump administration undo that work?...

Drug Dealers Have Moved on to Social Media

The marketing of illegal drugs on open platforms is “gaining prominence,” authorities note, while the number of drug transactions on the dark web has decreased in recent years...

The New Jersey Drone Mystery May Not Actually Be That Mysterious

A flurry of drone sightings across New Jersey and New York has sparked national intrigue and US government responses. But experts are pouring cold water on America’s hottest new conspiracy theory...

Google Chrome’s uBlock Origin Purge Has Begun

Plus: The alleged SEC X account hacker gets charged, Kroger wriggles out of a face recognition scandal, and Microsoft deals with missing customer security logs...

What the US Army’s 1959 ‘Soldier of Tomorrow’ Got Right About the Future of Warfare

Sixty-five years ago, the Army's leaders unveiled its “ultimate weapon” for the age of atomic warfare. Here’s how the service’s vision stands up to today's reality...

GPS Jamming Is Screwing With Norwegian Planes

So much jamming is taking place in northeastern Norway, regulators no longer want to know...

License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars

From Trump campaign signs to Planned Parenthood bumper stickers, license plate readers around the US are creating searchable databases that reveal Americans’ political leanings and more...

Russia-Backed Media Outlets Are Under Fire in the US—but Still Trusted Worldwide

The US government says outlets like RT work closely with Russian intelligence, and platforms have removed or banned their content. But they’re still influential all around the world...

The Mystery of Hezbollah’s Deadly Exploding Pagers

At least eight people have been killed and more than 2,700 people have been injured in Lebanon by exploding pagers. Experts say the blasts point toward a supply chain compromise, not a cyberattack...

Notorious Iranian Hackers Have Been Targeting the Space Industry With a New Backdoor

In addition to its long-standing password spraying attacks, Microsoft says Iran-backed hacker group Peach Sandstorm—or APT 33—has developed custom malware dubbed “Tickler.”...

The Pentagon Is Planning a Drone ‘Hellscape’ to Defend Taiwan

The US Defense Department’s grand strategy for protecting Taiwan from a massive Chinese military offensive involves flooding the zone with thousands of drones...

The Slow-Burn Nightmare of the National Public Data Breach

Social Security numbers, physical addresses, and more—all available online. After months of confusion, leaked information from a background-check firm underscores the long-term risks of data breaches...

War Crime Prosecutions Enter a New Digital Age

A custom platform developed by SITU Research aided the International Criminal Court’s prosecution in a war crimes trial for the first time. It could change how justice is enacted on an international scale...

Red Tape Is Making Hospital Ransomware Attacks Worse

With cyberattacks increasingly targeting health care providers, an arduous bureaucratic process meant to address legal risk is keeping hospitals offline longer, potentially risking lives...

US Leaders Dodge Questions About Israel’s Influence Campaign

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has joined US intelligence officials in ignoring repeated inquiries about Israel’s “malign” efforts to covertly influence US voters...

Ransomware Is ‘More Brutal’ Than Ever in 2024

As the fight against ransomware slogs on, security experts warn of a potential escalation to “real-world violence.” But recent police crackdowns are successfully disrupting the cybercriminal ecosystem...

AI Is Your Coworker Now. Can You Trust It?

Generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot are becoming part of everyday business life. But they come with privacy and security considerations you should know about...

The Unusual Espionage Act Case Against a Drone Photographer

In seemingly the first case of its kind, the US Justice Department has charged a Chinese national with using a drone to photograph a Virginia shipyard where the US Navy was assembling nuclear submarines...

Welcome to the Laser Wars

Amid a rising tide of adversary drones and missile attacks, laser weapons are finally poised to enter the battlefield...

Trump Loyalists Kill Vote on US Wiretap Program

An attempt to reauthorize Section 702, the so-called crown jewel of US spy powers, failed for a third time in the House of Representatives after former president Donald Trump criticized the law...

Sinking Section 702 Wiretap Program Offered One Last Lifeboat

For months, US lawmakers have examined every side of a historic surveillance debate. With the introduction of the SAFE Act, all that’s left to do now is vote...