CBP Wants New Tech to Search for Hidden Data on Seized Phones

Customs and Border Protection is asking companies to pitch tools for performing deep analysis on the contents of devices seized at the US border...

Identities of More Than 80 Americans Stolen for North Korean IT Worker Scams

The US Justice Department revealed the identity theft number along with one arrest and a crackdown on “laptop farms” that allegedly facilitate North Korean tech worker impersonators across the US...

ICE Rolls Facial Recognition Tools Out to Officers' Phones

Plus: US feds charge alleged masterminds behind infamous forum, Scattered Spider targets airlines, and hackers open a valve at a Norwegian dam...

‘They're Not Breathing’: Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls

Records of hundreds of emergency calls from ICE detention centers obtained by WIRED—including audio recordings—show a system inundated by life-threatening incidents, delayed treatment, and overcrowding...

What Satellite Images Reveal About the US Bombing of Iran's Nuclear Sites

The US concentrated its attack on Fordow, an enrichment plant built hundreds of feet underground. Aerial photos give important clues about what damage the “bunker-buster” bombs may have caused...

Truth Social Crashes as Trump Live-Posts Iran Bombing

The social network started experiencing global outages within minutes of Donald Trump posting details of a US military strike on Iran...

AI Code Hallucinations Increase the Risk of ‘Package Confusion’ Attacks

A new study found that code generated by AI is more likely to contain made-up information that can be used to trick software into interacting with malicious code...

TVs at HUD Played an AI-Generated Video of Donald Trump Kissing Elon Musk’s Feet

On Monday morning, TV sets at the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development played the seemingly AI-generated video on loop, along with the words “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING.”...

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...

License Plate Readers Are Leaking Real-Time Video Feeds and Vehicle Data

Misconfigured license-plate-recognition systems reveal the livestreams of individual cameras and the wealth of data they collect about every vehicle that passes by them...

ICE Signs $2 Million Contract With Spyware Maker Paragon Solutions

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s one-year contract with Paragon’s US subsidiary comes amid the Biden administration’s years-long crackdown on commercial spyware vendors...

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 Quiet Rise of Real-Time Crime Centers

Cities across the US have established RTCCs that police say protect the rights of innocent people, but critics warn of creeping surveillance...

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...

I Lost $17,000 in Crypto. Here’s How to Avoid My Mistake

I’m not the first person to suffer this fate, but hopefully I can be the last...

The Fight Against Robocall Spam and Scams Heats Up in India

A new proposal by India's telecom regulator aims to make accurate caller ID mandatory, but critics say it may be fundamentally flawed...

Mueller Report Fallout Pressures Democrats to Impeach Trump

Congressional Democrats have punted on the question of impeaching Donald Trump. The Mueller report makes that calculus much harder...

OpenAI Is About to Release Its First AI Model With ‘Critical’ Cyber Abilities

The company will give select partners early access to its Astra AI model—so they have time to shore up their defenses...

CBP Facility Codes Sure Seem to Have Leaked Via Online Flashcards

The Quizlet flashcards, which WIRED found through basic Google searches, seem to include sensitive information about gate security at Customs and Border Protection locations...

Ring Kills Flock Safety Deal After Super Bowl Ad Uproar

Plus: Meta plans to add face recognition to its smart glasses, Jared Kushner named as part of whistleblower’s mysterious national security complaint, and more...

Crypto-Funded Human Trafficking Is Exploding

The use of cryptocurrency in sales of human beings for prostitution and scam compounds nearly doubled in 2025, according to a conservative estimate. Many of the deals are happening in plain sight...

ICE Is Crashing the US Court System in Minnesota

Petitions demanding people get the chance to be released from ICE custody have overwhelmed courts throughout the US...

An AI Toy Exposed 50,000 Logs of Its Chats With Kids to Anyone With a Gmail Account

AI chat toy company Bondu left its web console almost entirely unprotected. Researchers who accessed it found nearly all the conversations children had with the company’s stuffed animals...

Surveillance and ICE Are Driving Patients Away From Medical Care, Report Warns

A new EPIC report says data brokers, ad-tech surveillance, and ICE enforcement are among the factors leading to a “health privacy crisis” that is eroding trust and deterring people from seeking care...

Why ICE Can Kill With Impunity

Over the past decade, US immigration agents have shot and killed more than two dozen people. Not a single agent appears to have faced criminal charges...

Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking

Flaws in how 17 models of headphones and speakers use Google’s one-tap Fast Pair Bluetooth protocol have left devices open to eavesdroppers and stalkers...

ICE Agent Who Reportedly Shot Renee Good Was a Firearms Trainer, per Testimony

Jonathan Ross told a federal court in December about his professional background, including “hundreds” of encounters with drivers during enforcement actions, according to testimony obtained by WIRED...

The ‘Epstein’s Suicide’ Video in the Latest DOJ Release Isn’t What It Seems

Here’s how a fake clip from 2019 wound up in the latest Justice Department Epstein files dump...

ICE Seeks Cyber Upgrade to Better Surveil and Investigate Its Employees

The agency plans to renew a sweeping cybersecurity contract that includes expanded employee monitoring as the government escalates leak investigations and casts internal dissent as a threat...

Border Patrol Bets on Small Drones to Expand US Surveillance Reach

Federal records show CBP is moving from testing small drones to making them standard surveillance tools, expanding a network that can follow activity in real time and extend well beyond the border...

FBI Says DC Pipe Bomb Suspect Brian Cole Kept Buying Bomb Parts After January 6

The 30-year-old Virginia resident evaded capture for years after authorities discovered pipe bombs planted near buildings in Washington, DC, the day before the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack...

CBP Searched a Record Number of Phones at the US Border Over the Past Year

The total number of US Customs and Border Protection device searches jumped by 17 percent over the 2024 fiscal year, but more invasive forensic searches remain relatively rare...

SSA Whistleblower’s Resignation Email Mysteriously Disappeared From Inboxes

Less than 30 minutes after the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer resigned following a whistleblower complaint, recipients could no longer access the resignation email...

Phone Searches at the US Border Hit a Record High

Customs and Border Protection agents searched nearly 15,000 devices from April through June of this year, a nearly 17 percent spike over the previous three-month high in 2022...

What Does Palantir Actually Do?

Palantir is often called a data broker, a data miner, or a giant database of personal information. In reality, it’s none of these—but even former employees struggle to explain it...

Leak Reveals the Workaday Lives of North Korean IT Scammers

Spreadsheets, Slack messages, and files linked to an alleged group of North Korean IT workers expose their meticulous job-planning and targeting—and the constant surveillance they're under...

China’s Salt Typhoon Hackers Breached the US National Guard for Nearly a Year

Plus: Secret IRS data-sharing with ICE, a 20-year-old hackable vulnerability in train brakes, and more...

Trump Officials Want to Prosecute Over the ICEBlock App. Lawyers Say That’s Unconstitutional

The platform, which allows users to anonymously share the locations of ICE agents, is currently the third-most-downloaded iPhone app...

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...

The Top Cybersecurity Agency in the US Is Bracing for Donald Trump

Staffers at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency tell WIRED they fear the new administration will cut programs that keep the US safe—and “persecution.”...

The Simple Math Behind Public Key Cryptography

The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part of your encryption to make your information much more secure...

US Officials Recommend Encryption Apps Amid Chinese Telecom Hacking

Plus: Russian spies keep hijacking other hackers’ infrastructure, Hydra dark web market admin gets life sentence in Russia, and more of the week’s top security news...

Immigration Police Can Already Sidestep US Sanctuary City Laws Using Data-Sharing Fusion Centers

Built to combat terrorism, fusion centers give US Immigration and Customs Enforcement a way to gain access to data that’s meant to be protected under city laws limiting local police cooperation with ICE...

Russia Is Going All Out on Election Day Interference

Along with other foreign influence operations—including from Iran—Kremlin-backed campaigns to stoke division and fear have gone into overdrive...

Apple’s New Passwords App May Solve Your Login Nightmares

Apple is launching its first stand-alone password manager app in iOS 18. Here’s what you need to know...

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...

How Infostealers Pillaged the World’s Passwords

Infostealer malware is swiping millions of passwords, cookies, and search histories. It’s a gold mine for hackers—and a disaster for anyone who becomes a target...

Hackers Leaking Taylor Swift Tickets? Don’t Get Your Hopes Up

Plus: Researchers uncover a new way to expose CSAM peddlers, OpenAI suffered a secret cyberattack, cryptocurrency thefts jump in 2024, and Twilio confirms hackers stole 33 million phone numbers...

Amazon Is Investigating Perplexity Over Claims of Scraping Abuse

AWS hosted a server linked to the Bezos family- and Nvidia-backed search startup that appears to have been used to scrape the sites of major outlets, prompting an inquiry into potential rules violations...

Section 702: The Future of the Biggest US Spy Program Hangs in the Balance

The US Congress will this week decide the fate of Section 702, a major surveillance program that will soon expire if lawmakers do not act. WIRED is tracking the major developments as they unfold...