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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...
Scammers Are Creating Fake News Videos to Blackmail Victims
“Yahoo Boy” scammers are impersonating CNN and other news organizations to create videos that pressure victims into making blackmail payments...
Subaru Security Flaws Exposed Its System for Tracking Millions of Cars
Now-fixed web bugs allowed hackers to remotely unlock and start any of millions of Subarus. More disturbingly, they could also access at least a year of cars’ location histories—and Subaru employees still can...
Stop Calling Online Scams ‘Pig Butchering,’ Interpol Warns
Experts say the catchall term for online fraud furthers harm against victims and could dissuade people from reporting attempts to bilk them out of their money...
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...
A New Phone Scanner That Detects Spyware Has Already Found 7 Pegasus Infections
The mobile device security firm iVerify has been offering a tool since May that makes spyware scanning accessible to anyone—and it’s already turning up victims...
She Was a Russian Socialite and Influencer. Cops Say She’s a Crypto Laundering Kingpin
Western authorities say they’ve identified a network that found a new way to clean drug gangs’ dirty cash. WIRED gained exclusive access to the investigation...
The US Is Calling Out Foreign Influence Campaigns Faster Than Ever
The 2024 elections were a high-water mark for naming and shaming threat actors from foreign governments. There’s still work to be done, though, on how to attribute disinformation campaigns most effectively...
Auto-Rebooting iPhones Are Causing Chaos for Cops
Plus: Hot Topic confirms a customer data breach, Germany arrests a US citizen for allegedly passing military secrets to Chinese intelligence, and more...
What Google's U-Turn on Third-Party Cookies Means for Chrome Privacy
Earlier this year, Google ditched its plans to abolish support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser. While privacy advocates called foul, the implications for users is not so clear cut...
We Hunted Hidden Police Signals at the DNC
Using special software, WIRED investigated police surveillance at the DNC. We collected signals from nearly 300,000 devices, revealing vulnerabilities for both law enforcement and everyday citizens alike...
The Japanese Robot Controversy Lurking in Israel’s Military Supply Chain
Activists claim Japanese industrial robots are being used to build military equipment for Israel. The robot maker denies the claims, but the episode reveals the complex ethics of global manufacturing...
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...
Saboteurs Cut Internet Cables in Latest Disruption During Paris Olympics
Long-distance cables were severed across France in a move that disrupted internet connectivity...
How One Bad CrowdStrike Update Crashed the World’s Computers
A defective CrowdStrike update sent computers around the globe into a reboot death spiral, taking down air travel, hospitals, banks, and more with it. Here’s how that’s possible...
Notorious Hacker Kingpin ‘Tank’ Is Finally Going to Prison
The cybercrime boss, who helped lead the prolific Zeus malware gang and was on the FBI’s “most wanted” list for years, has been sentenced to 18 years and ordered to pay more than $73 million...
Perplexity Plagiarized Our Story About How Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine
Experts aren’t unanimous about whether the AI-powered search startup’s practices could expose it to legal claims ranging from infringement to defamation—but some say plaintiffs would have strong cases...
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...
Ecuador Is Literally Powerless in the Face of Drought
Drought-stricken hydro dams have led to daily electricity cuts in Ecuador. As weather becomes less predictable due to climate change, experts say other countries need to take notice...
The Incognito Mode Myth Has Fully Unraveled
To settle a years-long lawsuit, Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” collected from users of “Incognito mode,” illuminating the pitfalls of relying on Chrome to protect your privacy...
Here Are the Google and Microsoft Security Updates You Need Right Now
Plus: Mozilla patches 12 flaws in Firefox, Zoom fixes seven vulnerabilities, and more critical updates from February...
How a Right-Wing Controversy Could Sabotage US Election Security
Republicans who run elections are split over whether to keep working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to fight hackers, online falsehoods, and polling-place threats...
Epik, the Far Right's Favorite Web Host, Has a Shadowy New Owner
Known for doing business with far-right extremist websites, Epik has been acquired by a company that specializes in helping businesses keep their operations secret...
2054, Part III: The Singularity
“You’d have an incomprehensible level of computational, predictive, analytic, and psychic skill. You’d have the mind of God.” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...
Apple and Google Just Patched Their First Zero-Day Flaws of the Year
Plus: Google fixes dozens of Android bugs, Microsoft rolls out nearly 50 patches, Mozilla squashes 15 Firefox flaws, and more...
End-to-End Encrypted Instagram and Messenger Chats: Why It Took Meta 7 Years
Mark Zuckerberg personally promised that the privacy feature would launch by default on Messenger and Instagram chat. WIRED goes behind the scenes of the company’s colossal effort to get it right...
The Binance Crackdown Will Be an 'Unprecedented' Bonanza for Crypto Surveillance
Binance’s settlement requires it to offer years of transaction data to US regulators and cops, exposing the company—and its customers—to a “24/7, 365-days-a-year financial colonoscopy.”...
Police Can Spy on Your iOS and Android Push Notifications
Governments can access records related to push notifications from mobile apps by requesting that data from Apple and Google, according to details in court records and a US senator...
A Civil Rights Firestorm Erupts Around a Looming Surveillance Power Grab
Dozens of advocacy groups are pressuring the US Congress to abandon plans to ram through the renewal of a controversial surveillance program that they say poses an “alarming threat to civil rights.”...
Elon Musk Is Giving QAnon Believers Hope Just in Time for the 2024 Elections
Musk’s recent use of the term “QAnon” is his most explicit endorsement of the movement to date. Conspiracists have since spent days dissecting its meaning and cheering on his apparent support...
How to Stop Google From Deleting Your Inactive Account
Your inactive profiles, like Gmail or Docs, could turn into digital dust later this year. A few clicks can save them...
Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023 Seeks to End Warrantless Police and FBI Spying
The Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023 pulls from past privacy bills to overhaul how police and the feds access Americans’ data and communications...
Elon Musk Is Personally Undermining X’s Efforts to Curb Israel-Hamas War Disinformation
X’s Trust and Safety team says it’s working to remove false information related to the Israel-Hamas war. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is sharing conspiracies and chatting with QAnon promoters...
Google Fixes Serious Security Flaws in Chrome and Android
Plus: Mozilla patches more than a dozen vulnerabilities in Firefox, and enterprise companies Ivanti, Cisco, and SAP roll out a slew of updates to get rid of some high-severity bugs...
Donald Trump's Mug Shot Matters in a World of Fakes
The first booking photo of a US president stands out among a sea of photoshops and AI-generated images online...
A Huge Scam Targeting Kids With Roblox and Fortnite 'Offers' Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight
The wide-ranging scams, often disguised as game promotions, can all be linked back to one network...
China’s Breach of Microsoft Cloud Email May Expose Deeper Problems
Plus: Microsoft expands access to premium security features, AI child sexual abuse material is on the rise, and Netflix’s password crackdown has its intended effect...
NYPD Body Cam Data Shows the Scale of Violence Against Protesters
A landmark $13 million settlement with the City of New York is the latest in a string of legal wins for protesters who were helped by a video-analysis tool that smashes the “bad apple” myth...
Satellites Are Rife With Basic Security Flaws
German researchers gained rare access to three satellites and found that they're years behind normal cybersecurity standards...
Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act Goes Back to Congress
A bill to prevent cops and spies from buying Americans’ data instead of getting a warrant has a fighting chance in the US Congress as lawmakers team up against surveillance overreach...
How a Cloud Flaw Gave Chinese Spies a Key to Microsoft’s Kingdom
Microsoft says hackers somehow stole a cryptographic key, perhaps from its own network, that let them forge user identities and slip past cloud defenses...
Ransomware Attacks Are on the Rise, Again
Ransomware attacks tumbled in 2022, offering hope that the tide was turning against the criminal gangs behind them. Then things got a whole lot worse...
Silk Road’s Second-in-Command, Variety Jones, Gets 20 Years in Prison
Roger Thomas Clark, also known as Variety Jones, will spend much of the rest of his life in prison for his key role in building the world’s first dark-web drug market...
How to Use Discord’s Family Center With Your Teens
The popular communication platform launched a new child safety tool for parents. Here’s what the feature does and doesn’t include...
Russia’s Notorious Troll Farm Disbands
Plus: A French bill would allow spying via phone cameras, ATM skimmers target welfare families, and Japan’s largest cargo port gets hit with ransomware...
An Anti-Porn App Put Him in Jail and His Family Under Surveillance
A court used an app called Covenant Eyes to surveil the family of a man released on bond. Now he’s back in jail, and tech misuse may be to blame...
The Bizarre Reality of Getting Online in North Korea
New testimony from defectors reveals pervasive surveillance and monitoring of limited internet connections. For millions of others, the internet simply doesn't exist...