End-to-End Encrypted Texts Between Android and iPhone Are Coming

Plus: A nominee to lead CISA emerges, Elon Musk visits the NSA, a renowned crypto cracking firm’s secret and problematic cofounder is revealed, and more...

US Charges 12 Alleged Spies in China’s Freewheeling Hacker-for-Hire Ecosystem

The Justice Department claims 10 alleged hackers and two Chinese government officials took part in a wave of cyberattacks around the globe that included breaching the US Treasury Department and more...

A Hacker Group Within Russia’s Notorious Sandworm Unit Is Breaching Western Networks

A team Microsoft calls BadPilot is acting as Sandworm's “initial access operation,” the company says. And over the last year it's trained its sights on the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia...

Despite Catastrophic Hacks, Ransomware Payments Dropped Dramatically Last Year

Ransomware gangs continued to wreak havoc in 2024, but new research shows that the amounts victims paid these cybercriminals fell by hundreds of millions of dollars...

The Trial at the Tip of the Terrorgram Iceberg

Atomwaffen Division cofounder and alleged Terrorgram Collective member Brandon Russell is facing a potential 20-year sentence for an alleged plot on a Baltimore electrical station. His case is only the beginning...

Trump Frees Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht After 11 Years in Prison

Donald Trump pardoned the creator of the world’s first dark-web drug market, who is now a libertarian cause célèbre in some parts of the crypto community...

A New Jam-Packed Biden Executive Order Tackles Cybersecurity, AI, and More

US president Joe Biden just issued a 40-page executive order that aims to bolster federal cybersecurity protections, directs government use of AI—and takes a swipe at Microsoft’s dominance...

Secret Phone Surveillance Tech Was Likely Deployed at 2024 DNC

Data WIRED collected during the 2024 Democratic National Convention strongly suggests the use of a cell-site simulator, a controversial spy device that intercepts sensitive data from every phone in its range...

Californians Say X Blocked Them From Viewing Amber Alert About Missing 14-Year-Old

Many people reported they hit a screen preventing them from seeing the alert unless they signed in...

Why the US Military Can't Just Shoot Down the Mystery Drones

Small, easily weaponizable drones have become a feature of battlefields from the Middle East to Ukraine. Now the threat looms over the US homeland—and the Pentagon's ability to respond is limited...

As the Mastermind of Far-Right ‘Active Clubs’ Goes to Prison, His Violent Movement Goes Global

The white supremacist Robert Rundo faces years in prison. But the “Active Club” network he helped create has proliferated in countries around the world, from Eastern Europe to South America...

Senators Warn the Pentagon: Get a Handle on China’s Telecom Hacking

In a letter to the Department of Defense, senators Ron Wyden and Eric Schmitt are calling for an investigation into fallout from the Salt Typhoon espionage campaign...

Andrew Tate’s ‘Educational Platform’ Was Hacked

Plus: The worst telecom hack in US history rolls on, iPhones are harder to break into, and more of the week’s top security news...

Meta Finally Breaks Its Silence on Pig Butchering

The company gave details for the first time on its approach to combating organized criminal networks behind the devastating scams...

Florida Man Accused of Hacking Disney World Menus, Changing Font to Wingdings

Plus: Cops take down a notorious infostealer, Strava leaks world leaders’ locations, and a hacking scandal is causing chaos in Italy...

Therapy Sessions Exposed by Mental Health Care Firm’s Unsecured Database

Video and audio of therapy sessions, transcripts, and other patient records were accidentally exposed in a publicly accessible database operated by the virtual medical company Confidant Health...

The US Navy Has Run Out of Pants

Plus: The US intelligence community formally blames Iran for Trump campaign hack, aircraft-tracking platform FlightAware says a “configuration error” exposed sensitive user data, and more...

Google Researchers Found Nearly a Dozen Flaws in Popular Qualcomm Software for Mobile GPUs

The vulnerabilities, which have been patched, may have novel appeal to attackers as an avenue to compromising phones...

Tricky Web Timing Attacks Are Getting Easier to Use—and Abuse

New research shows how known techniques for finding weaknesses in websites are actually practical in uncovering vulnerabilities, for better or worse...

How Project 2025 Would Put US Elections at Risk

Experts say the “nonsensical” policy proposal, which largely aligns with Donald Trump’s agenda, would weaken the US agency tasked with protecting election integrity, critical infrastructure, and more...

Saboteurs Cut Internet Cables in Latest Disruption During Paris Olympics

Long-distance cables were severed across France in a move that disrupted internet connectivity...

Stop X’s Grok AI From Training on Your Tweets

Plus: More Pegasus spyware controversy, a major BIOS controversy, and more of the week’s top security news...

Europe Is Pumping Billions Into New Military Tech

The European Commission is allocating €7.3 billion for defense research over the next seven years. From drones and tanks of the future to battleships and space intelligence, here's what it funds...

At the Olympics, AI Is Watching You

A controversial new surveillance system in Paris foreshadows a future where there are too many CCTV cameras for humans to physically watch...

How Russia-Linked Malware Cut Heat to 600 Ukrainian Buildings in Deep Winter

The code, the first of its kind, was used to sabotage a heating utility in Lviv at the coldest point in the year—what appears to be yet another innovation in Russia’s torment of Ukrainian civilians...

J.D. Vance Left His Venmo Public. Here’s What It Shows

The Republican VP nominee's Venmo network reveals connections ranging from the architects of Project 2025 to enemies of Donald Trump—and the populist's close ties to the very elites he rails against...

US Senators Secretly Work to Block Safeguards Against Surveillance Abuse

Senator Mark Warner is trying to pass new limits on when the government can wiretap Americans. At least two senators are quietly trying to stop him...

The Sweeping Danger of the AT&T Phone Records Breach

Telecom giant AT&T says a major data breach has exposed the call and text records of “nearly all” of its customers, epitomizing the dire state of data security...

Proton Is Launching Encrypted Documents to Take On Google Docs

Proton is adding an end-to-end encrypted documents editor to its privacy tools, boosting its competition with Google’s suite of productivity apps...

The Problem the US TikTok Crackdown and Kaspersky Ban Have in Common

While Kaspersky and TikTok make very different kinds of software, the US has targeted both over national security concerns. But the looming bans have larger implications for internet freedom...

This Is What Would Happen if China Invaded Taiwan

The new book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century lays out what might actually happen if China were to invade Taiwan in 2028...

Russia Vetoed a UN Resolution to Ban Space Nukes

A ban on weapons of mass destruction in orbit has stood since 1967. Russia apparently has other ideas...

The UK’s GPS Tagging of Migrants Has Been Ruled Illegal

The UK’s privacy regulator says the government did not take into account the intrusiveness of ankle tags that continuously monitor a person’s location...

Child Abusers Are Getting Better at Using Crypto to Cover Their Tracks

Crypto tracing firm Chainalysis found that sellers of child sexual abuse materials are successfully using “mixers” and “privacy coins” like Monero to launder their profits and evade law enforcement...

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...

Anduril’s New Drone Killer Is Locked on to AI-Powered Warfare

Autonomous drones are rapidly changing combat. Anduril’s new one aims to gain an edge with jet power and AI...

DOJ Charges Binance With Vast Money-Laundering Scheme and Sanctions Violations

From Russia to Iran, the feds have charged Binance with conducting well over $1 billion in transactions with sanctioned countries and criminal actors...

The QAnon Shaman Isn’t Even the Most Extreme Candidate in His Race for Congress

Jacob Chansley, the January 6 rioter known as the QAnon Shaman, will run for Congress in Arizona. The most remarkable thing about his campaign so far is how unremarkable it is in a state that’s embraced election conspiracies...

Netflix’s Password-Sharing Crackdown Has Hit the US

TikTok user data is exposed to Chinese ByteDance employees, a screen recording app goes rogue in Google Play, and privacy groups want Slack to expand encryption...

Your Twitter Feed Sucks Now. These Free Add-Ons Can Help

A few simple tools can help filter out most Twitter Blue users but still see the ones you like...

Congress Has a Lo-Fi Plan to Fix the Classified Documents Mess

As unsecured docs pile up, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is itching to overhaul the nation’s secret secret-sharing operation...

The Hunt for the Dark Web’s Biggest Kingpin, Part 4: Face to Face

The team uses a secret technique to locate AlphaBay’s server. But just as the operation heats up, the agents have an unexpected run-in with their target...

This Chatbot Aims to Steer People Away From Child Abuse Material

Pornhub is trialing a new automated tool that pushes CSAM-searchers to seek help for their online behavior. Will it work?...

The Ghost of Internet Explorer Will Haunt the Web for Years

Microsoft's legacy browser may be dead—but its remnants are not going anywhere, and neither are its lingering security risks...

The Hidden Race to Protect the US Bioeconomy From Hacker Threats

A biotech threat intelligence group is gaining supporters as urgency mounts around an overlooked vulnerable sector...

The EU Wants Big Tech to Scan Your Private Chats for Child Abuse

Europe’s proposed child protection laws could undermine end-to-end encryption for billions of people...

FBI Conducted 3.4 Million Warrantless Searches of Americans' Data

Plus: Trump backers breach election systems, Microsoft tracks Russia's war prep, a new Facebook leak reveals a mess, and Bored Ape Yacht Club gets hacked...

Forcing WhatsApp and iMessage to Work Together Is Doomed to Fail

Europe’s Digital Markets Act requires interoperability between popular messaging apps. But experts warn encryption could be compromised...

The Fragile Open Source Ecosystem Isn't Ready for 'Protestware'

A recent uptick in disruptions to open source software, including incidents aimed at objecting to Russia's war in Ukraine, have left the community on edge...

Feds Allege Destructive Russian Hackers Targeted US Refineries

The Justice Department unsealed indictments against four alleged Russian hackers said to have targeted US energy infrastructure for nearly a decade...