Microsoft Warns Foreign Disinformation Is Hitting the US Election From All Directions

Russia, Iran, and China are targeting the US election with an evolving array of influence operations in the last days of campaign season...

The Disinformation Warning Coming From the Edge of Europe

Moldova is facing a tide of disinformation unprecedented in complexity and aggression, the head of a new center meant to combat it tells WIRED. And platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and YouTube could do more...

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...

Tesla’s Cybertruck Goes, Inevitably, to War

A handful of Tesla’s electric pickup trucks are armed and ready for battle in the hands of Chechen forces fighting in Ukraine as part of Russia’s ongoing invasion. Can the EV take the heat?...

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...

How to Stop Your X Account From Getting Hacked Like the SEC's

The US Securities and Exchange Commission and security firm Mandiant both had their X accounts breached, possibly due to changes to X’s two-factor authentication settings. Here’s how to fix yours...

Inside the Operation to Bring Down Trump’s Truth Social

The North Atlantic Fellas Organization is trying to shut down Trump’s flailing social media platform before the 2024 election—by shitposting...

Kaspersky Says New Zero-Day Malware Hit iPhones—Including Its Own

On the same day, Russia’s FSB intelligence service launched wild claims of NSA and Apple hacking thousands of Russians...

WhatsApp Launches a Proxy Tool to Fight Internet Censorship

Amid internet shutdowns in Iran, the encrypted messaging app is introducing proxy connections that can help people get online...

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...

How to Password Protect Any File

Put a digital lock on your most important data...

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...

Muse Creates Detailed Profiles of All Your Friends and Family

Millions have downloaded Meta’s AI agent Muse. But getting it to do your bidding comes with privacy costs...

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...

How to Use Passkeys With Google Password Manager (2025)

Google can create and manage passkeys from your browser, but the process is more involved than it suggests...

How to Use a Password Manager to Share Your Logins After You Die (2025)

Your logins will live on after you pass on. Make sure they end up in the right hands...

‘SIM Farms’ Are a Spam Plague. A Giant One in New York Threatened US Infrastructure, Feds Say

The agency says it found a network of some 300 servers and 100,000 SIM cards—enough to knock out cell service in the NYC area. Experts say it mirrors facilities typically used for cybercrime...

How China’s Propaganda and Surveillance Systems Really Operate

A series of corporate leaks show that Chinese technology companies function far more like their Western peers than one might imagine...

Here’s What to Know About Poland Shooting Down Russian Drones

On Wednesday morning, Poland shot down several Russian drones that entered its airspace—a first since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The incident disrupted air travel and set the region on edge...

Cindy Cohn Is Leaving the EFF, but Not the Fight for Digital Rights

After 25 years at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cindy Cohn is stepping down as executive director. In a WIRED interview, she reflects on encryption, AI, and why she’s not ready to quit the battle...

US Congressman’s Brother Lands No-Bid Contract to Train DHS Snipers

DHS says retired Marine sniper Dan LaLota’s firm is uniquely qualified to meet the government’s needs. LaLota tells WIRED his brother, GOP congressman Nick LaLota, played no role in the contract...

Microsoft Put Older Versions of SharePoint on Life Support. Hackers Are Taking Advantage

Multiple hacking groups—including state actors from China—have targeted a vulnerability in older, on-premises versions of the file-sharing tool after a flawed attempt to patch it...

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...

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...

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...

US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court held that age verification for explicit sites is constitutional. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan warned it burdens adults and ignores First Amendment precedent...

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 War on Passwords Is One Step Closer to Being Over

“Passkeys,” the secure authentication mechanism built to replace passwords, are getting more portable and easier for organizations to implement thanks to new initiatives the FIDO Alliance announced on Monday...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

Autonomous Vehicles Join the List of US National Security Threats

Lawmakers are growing concerned about a flood of data-hungry cars from China taking over American streets...

Twitter’s Ex-Election Chief Is Worried About the US Midterms

Edward Perez says that “manufactured chaos” by bad actors will be even riskier thanks to Elon Musk’s own mayhem...

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...

The Quiet Way Advertisers Are Tracking Your Browsing

Cookies are on the way out—but not enough is being done about browser fingerprinting. So what is it?...

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...

Facebook and Twitter's Biggest Problems Follow Them to Congress

As Jack Dorsey and Sheryl Sandberg testified before Congress, some of Twitter and Facebook's most notorious trolls and misinformation artists watched on...

A Flaw in ChatGPT’s Mac App Could Have Let Hackers Grab Sensitive Data

While the focus has been on AI agents’ hacking capabilities, a recently patched vulnerability in a ChatGPT app shows that AI software is itself an inviting—and vulnerable—target...

The US and Mexico Announce They’re Teaming Up Against Drones

The new joint operation uses laser-based technology capable of detecting, tracking, and disabling commercial drones linked to human and drug trafficking...

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...

Apple Announces $2 Million Bug Bounty Reward for the Most Dangerous Exploits

With the mercenary spyware industry booming, Apple VP Ivan Krstić tells WIRED that the company is also offering bonuses that could bring the max total reward for iPhone exploits to $5 million...

Vibe Coding Is the New Open Source—in the Worst Way Possible

As developers increasingly lean on AI-generated code to build out their software—as they have with open source in the past—they risk introducing critical security failures along the way...

This Microsoft Entra ID Vulnerability Could Have Been Catastrophic

A pair of flaws in Microsoft's Entra ID identity and access management system could have allowed an attacker to gain access to virtually all Azure customer accounts...

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...

New Jersey Sues Discord for Allegedly Failing to Protect Children

The New Jersey attorney general claims Discord’s features to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content are inadequate...

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.”...

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...

With Threats to Encryption Looming, Signal’s Meredith Whittaker Says ‘We’re Not Changing’

At WIRED’s The Big Interview event, the president of the Signal Foundation talked about secure communications as critical infrastructure and the need for a new funding paradigm for tech...