DOGE’s USDS Purge Included the Guy Who Keeps Veterans’ Data Safe Online

The cybersecurity lead for VA.gov was fired last week. He tells WIRED that the Veterans Affairs digital hub will be more vulnerable without someone in his role...

The US Is Considering a TP-Link Router Ban—Should You Worry?

Several government departments are investigating TP-Link routers over Chinese cyberattack fears, but the company denies links...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology Braces for Mass Firings

Approximately 500 NIST staffers, including at least three lab directors, are expected to lose their jobs at the standards agency as part of the ongoing DOGE purge, sources tell WIRED...

Google Ad-Tech Users Can Target National Security ‘Decision Makers’ and People With Chronic Diseases

Google enables marketers to target people with serious illnesses and crushing debt—against its policies—as well as the makers of classified defense technology, a WIRED investigation has found...

Microsoft Hosted Explicit Videos of This Startup Founder for Years. Here's How She Got Them Taken Down

Breeze Liu has been a prominent advocate for victims. But even she struggled to scrub nonconsensual intimate images and videos of herself from the web...

DOGE Now Has Access to the Top US Cybersecurity Agency

DOGE technologists Edward Coristine—the 19-year-old known online as “Big Balls”—and Kyle Schutt are now listed as staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency...

A Signal Update Fends Off a Phishing Technique Used in Russian Espionage

Google warns that hackers tied to Russia are tricking Ukrainian soldiers with fake QR codes for Signal group invites that let spies steal their messages. Signal has pushed out new safeguards...

Elon Musk’s DOGE Is Being Sued Under the Privacy Act: What to Know

At least eight ongoing lawsuits related to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s alleged access to sensitive data hinge on the Watergate-inspired Privacy Act of 1974. But it’s not airtight...

The Official DOGE Website Launch Was a Security Mess

Plus: Researchers find RedNote lacks basic security measures, surveillance ramps up around the US-Mexico border, and the UK ordering Apple to create an encryption backdoor comes under fire...

Top US Election Security Watchdog Forced to Stop Election Security Work

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has frozen efforts to aid states in securing elections, according to an internal memo viewed by WIRED...

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...

China’s Salt Typhoon Spies Are Still Hacking Telecoms—Now by Exploiting Cisco Routers

Despite high-profile attention and even US sanctions, the group hasn’t stopped or even slowed its operation, including the breach of two more US telecoms...

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...

The Murky Ad-Tech World Powering Surveillance of US Military Personnel

A Florida data broker told a US senator it obtained sensitive data on US military members in Germany from a Lithuanian firm, which denies involvement—revealing the opaque nature of online ad surveillance...

US Funding Cuts Are Helping Criminals Get Away With Child Abuse and Human Trafficking

Services supporting victims of online child exploitation and trafficking around the world have faced USAID and State Department cuts—and children are suffering as a result, sources tell WIRED...

The Rise of the Drone Boats

Swarms of weaponized unmanned surface vessels have proven formidable weapons in the Black and Red Seas. Can the US military learn the right lessons from it?...

UK Secret Order Demands That Apple Give Access to Users’ Encrypted Data

Plus: Benjamin Netanyahu gives Donald Trump a golden pager, Hewlett Packard Enterprise blames Russian government hackers for a breach, and more...

ACLU Warns DOGE’s ‘Unchecked’ Access Could Violate Federal Law

The ACLU says it stands ready to sue for access to government records that detail DOGE’s access to sensitive personnel data...

DOGE Teen Owns ‘Tesla.Sexy LLC’ and Worked at Startup That Has Hired Convicted Hackers

Experts question whether Edward Coristine, a DOGE staffer who has gone by “Big Balls” online, would pass the background check typically required for access to sensitive US government systems...

The Collapse of USAID Is Already Fueling Human Trafficking and Slavery at Scammer Compounds

The dismantling of USAID by Elon Musk's DOGE and a State Department funding freeze have severely disrupted efforts to help people escape forced labor camps run by criminal scammers...

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...

Meet the Hired Guns Who Make Sure School Cyberattacks Stay Hidden

An investigation into more than 300 cyberattacks against US K–12 schools over the past five years shows how schools can withhold crucial details from students and parents whose data was stolen...

Foreign Hackers Are Using Google’s Gemini in Attacks on the US

Plus: WhatsApp discloses nearly 100 targets of spyware, hackers used the AT&T breach to hunt for details on US politicians, and more...

DeepSeek’s Safety Guardrails Failed Every Test Researchers Threw at Its AI Chatbot

Security researchers tested 50 well-known jailbreaks against DeepSeek’s popular new AI chatbot. It didn’t stop a single one...

Exposed DeepSeek Database Revealed Chat Prompts and Internal Data

China-based DeepSeek has exploded in popularity, drawing greater scrutiny. Case in point: Security researchers found more than 1 million records, including user data and API keys, in an open database...

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...

DeepSeek’s Popular AI App Is Explicitly Sending US Data to China

Amid ongoing fears over TikTok, Chinese generative AI platform DeepSeek says it’s sending heaps of US user data straight to its home country, potentially setting the stage for greater scrutiny...

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...

US Privacy Snags a Win as Judge Limits Warrantless FBI Searches

Plus: A hacker finds an issue with Cloudflare’s systems that could reveal app users’ rough locations, and the Trump administration puts a wrench in a key cybersecurity investigation...

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...

Under Trump, US Cyberdefense Loses Its Head

Chinese hacks, rampant ransomware, and Donald Trump’s budget cuts all threaten US security. In an exit interview with WIRED, former CISA head Jen Easterly argues for her agency’s survival...

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...

How to Get Around the US TikTok Ban

TikTok is now unavailable in the United States—and getting around the ban isn’t as simple as using a VPN. Here’s what you need to know...

US Names One of the Hackers Allegedly Behind Massive Salt Typhoon Breaches

Plus: New details emerge about China’s cyber espionage against the US, the FBI remotely uninstalls malware on 4,200 US devices, and victims of the PowerSchool edtech breach reveal what hackers stole...

The FCC’s Jessica Rosenworcel Isn’t Leaving Without a Fight

As the US faces “the worst telecommunications hack in our nation’s history,” by China’s Salt Typhoon hackers, the outgoing FCC chair is determined to bolster network security if it’s the last thing she does...

Hackers Likely Stole FBI Call Logs From AT&T That Could Compromise Informants

A breach of AT&T that exposed “nearly all” of the company’s customers may have included records related to confidential FBI sources, potentially explaining the bureau’s new embrace of end-to-end encryption...

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?...

GitHub’s Deepfake Porn Crackdown Still Isn’t Working

Over a dozen programs used by creators of nonconsensual explicit images have evaded detection on the developer platform, WIRED has found...

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...

5 Best VPN Services (2024): For Routers, PC, iPhone, Android, and More

It won’t solve all of your privacy problems, but a virtual private network can make you a less tempting target for hackers...

The ‘Largest Illicit Online Marketplace’ Ever Is Growing at an Alarming Rate, Report Says

Huione Guarantee, a gray market researchers believe is central to the online scam ecosystem, now includes a messaging app, stablecoin, and crypto exchange—while facilitating $24 billion in transactions...

Inside the Black Box of Predictive Travel Surveillance

Behind the scenes, companies and governments are feeding a trove of data about international travelers into opaque AI tools that aim to predict who’s safe—and who’s a threat...

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...

Candy Crush, Tinder, MyFitnessPal: See the Thousands of Apps Hijacked to Spy on Your Location

A hack of location data company Gravy Analytics has revealed which apps are—knowingly or not—being used to collect your information behind the scenes...

Rumble Among 15 Targets of Texas Attorney General’s Child Privacy Probe

Texas has become a leading enforcer of internet rules. Its latest probe includes some platforms that privacy experts describe as unusual suspects...

How the US TikTok Ban Would Actually Work

The fate of TikTok now rests in the hands of the US Supreme Court. If a law banning the social video app this month is upheld, it won’t disappear from your phone—but it will get messy fast...

The School Shootings Were Fake. The Terror Was Real

The inside story of the teenager whose “swatting” calls sent armed police racing into hundreds of schools nationwide—and the private detective who tracked him down...

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...

Apple May Owe You $20 in a Siri Privacy Lawsuit Settlement

Plus: The FBI discovers a historic trove of homemade explosives, new details emerge in China’s hack of the US Treasury Department, and more...

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...