ShotSpotter Keeps Listening for Gunfire After Contracts Expire

Internal emails suggest that the company continued to provide gunshot data to police in cities where its contracts had been canceled...

Change Healthcare Finally Admits It Paid Ransomware Hackers—and Still Faces a Patient Data Leak

The company belatedly conceded both that it had paid the cybercriminals extorting it and that patient data nonetheless ended up on the dark web...

The Next US President Will Have Troubling New Surveillance Powers

Over the weekend, President Joe Biden signed legislation not only reauthorizing a major FISA spy program but expanding it in ways that could have major implications for privacy rights in the US...

North Koreans Secretly Animated Amazon and Max Shows, Researchers Say

Thousands of exposed files on a misconfigured North Korean server hint at one way the reclusive country may evade international sanctions...

AI-Controlled Fighter Jets Are Dogfighting With Human Pilots Now

Plus: New York’s legislature suffers a cyberattack, police disrupt a global phishing operation, and Apple removes encrypted messaging apps in China...

The Biggest Deepfake Porn Website Is Now Blocked in the UK

The world's most-visited deepfake website and another large competing site are stopping people in the UK from accessing them, days after the UK government announced a crackdown...

The Trump Jury Has a Doxing Problem

One juror in former US president Donald Trump’s criminal case in New York has been excused over fears she could be identified. It could get even messier...

The Real-Time Deepfake Romance Scams Have Arrived

Watch how smooth-talking scammers known as “Yahoo Boys” use widely available face-swapping tech to carry out elaborate romance scams...

Big Tech Says Spy Bill Turns Its Workers Into Informants

One of Silicon Valley’s most influential lobbying arms joins privacy reformers in a fight against the Biden administration–backed expansion of a major US surveillance program...

Hackers Linked to Russia’s Military Claim Credit for Sabotaging US Water Utilities

Cyber Army of Russia Reborn, a group with ties to the Kremlin’s Sandworm unit, is crossing lines even that notorious cyberwarfare unit wouldn’t dare to...

Change Healthcare’s New Ransomware Nightmare Goes From Bad to Worse

A cybercriminal gang called RansomHub claims to be selling highly sensitive patient information stolen from Change Healthcare following a ransomware attack by another group in February...

US Senate to Vote on a Wiretap Bill That Critics Call ‘Stasi-Like’

A controversial bill reauthorizing the Section 702 spy program may force whole new categories of businesses to eavesdrop on the US government’s behalf, including on fellow Americans...

The US Government Has a Microsoft Problem

Microsoft has stumbled through a series of major cybersecurity failures over the past few years. Experts say the US government’s reliance on its systems means the company continues to get a free pass...

How Israel Defended Against Iran's Drone and Missile Attack

The Iron Dome, US allies, and long-range interceptor missiles all came into play...

Space Force Is Planning a Military Exercise in Orbit

Two satellites will engage in a “realistic threat response scenario” when Victus Haze gets underway...

Roku Breach Hits 567,000 Users

Plus: Apple warns iPhone users about spyware attacks, CISA issues an emergency directive about a Microsoft breach, and a ransomware hacker tangles with an unimpressed HR manager named Beth...

House Votes to Extend—and Expand—a Major US Spy Program

The US House of Representatives voted on Friday to extend the Section 702 spy program. It passed without an amendment that would have required the FBI to obtain a warrant to access Americans’ information...

Change Healthcare Faces Another Ransomware Threat—and It Looks Credible

Change Healthcare ransomware hackers already received a $22 million payment. Now a second group is demanding money, and it has sent WIRED samples of what they claim is the company's stolen data...

The Best Personal Safety Devices, Apps, and Wearables (2024)

Your smartphone or wearable could help you out in a truly dangerous situation. Here are some options to consider...

DuckDuckGo Is Taking Its Privacy Fight to Data Brokers

Privacy-focused company DuckDuckGo is launching a tool to remove data from people-search websites, a VPN, and an identity theft restoration service...

Trump Loyalists Kill Vote on US Wiretap Program

An attempt to reauthorize Section 702, the so-called crown jewel of US spy powers, failed for a third time in the House of Representatives after former president Donald Trump criticized the law...

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...

AI Scam Calls: How to Protect Yourself, How to Detect

AI tools are getting better at cloning people’s voices, and scammers are using these new capabilities to commit fraud. Avoid getting swindled by following these expert tips...

A Breakthrough Online Privacy Proposal Hits Congress

While some states have made data privacy gains, the US has so far been unable to implement protections at a federal level. A new bipartisan proposal called APRA could break the impasse...

Best Privacy Browsers (2024): Brave, Safari, Ghostery, Firefox, DuckDuckGo

Ad trackers are out of control. Use a browser that reins them in...

Identity Thief Lived as a Different Man for 33 Years

Plus: Microsoft scolded for a “cascade” of security failures, AI-generated lawyers send fake legal threats, a data broker quietly lobbies against US privacy legislation, and more...

A Vigilante Hacker Took Down North Korea’s Internet. Now He’s Taking Off His Mask

As “P4x,” Alejandro Caceres single-handedly disrupted the internet of an entire country. Then he tried to show the US military how it can—and should—adopt his methods...

The Mystery of ‘Jia Tan,’ the XZ Backdoor Mastermind

The thwarted XZ Utils supply chain attack was years in the making. Now, clues suggest nation-state hackers were behind the persona that inserted the malicious code...

The XZ Backdoor: Everything You Need to Know

Details are starting to emerge about a stunning supply chain attack that sent the open source software community reeling...

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...

A Ghost Ship’s Doomed Journey Through the Gate of Tears

Millions lost internet service after three cables in the Red Sea were damaged. Houthi rebels deny targeting the cables, but their missile attack on a cargo ship, left adrift for months, is likely to blame...

You Should Update Apple iOS and Google Chrome ASAP

Plus: Microsoft patches over 60 vulnerabilities, Mozilla fixes two Firefox zero-day bugs, Google patches 40 issues in Android, and more...

Yogurt Heist Reveals a Rampant Form of Online Fraud

Plus: “MFA bombing” attacks target Apple users, Israel deploys face recognition tech on Gazans, AI gets trained to spot tent encampments, and OSINT investigators find fugitive Amond Bundy...

Jeffrey Epstein’s Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker

A WIRED investigation uncovered coordinates collected by a controversial data broker that reveal sensitive information about visitors to an island once owned by Epstein, the notorious sex offender...

‘Malicious Activity’ Hits the University of Cambridge’s Medical School

Multiple university departments linked to the Clinical School Computing Service have been inaccessible for a month. The university has not revealed the nature of the “malicious activity.”...

Judges Block US Extradition of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange—for Now

A high court in London says the WikiLeaks founder won’t be extradited “immediately” and the US must provide more “assurances” about any extradition...

Chinese Hackers Charged in Decade-Long Global Spying Rampage

US and UK officials hit Chinese hacking group APT31 with sanctions and criminal charges after they targeted thousands of businesses, politicians, and critics of China...

Apple Chip Flaw Leaks Secret Encryption Keys

Plus: The Biden administration warns of nationwide attacks on US water systems, a new Russian wiper malware emerges, and China-linked hackers wage a global attack spree...

The DOJ Puts Apple's iMessage Encryption in the Antitrust Crosshairs

Privacy and security are an Apple selling point. But the DOJ’s new antitrust lawsuit argues that Apple selectively embraces privacy and security features in ways that hurt competition—and users...

Hackers Found a Way to Open Any of 3 Million Hotel Keycard Locks in Seconds

The company behind the Saflok-brand door locks is offering a fix, but it may take months or years to reach some hotels...

Some of the Most Popular Websites Share Your Data With Over 1,500 Companies

Cookie pop-ups now show the number of “partners” that websites may share data with. Here's how many of these third-party companies may get your data from some of the most popular sites online...

Glassdoor Wants to Know Your Real Name

Anonymous, candid reviews made Glassdoor a powerful place to research potential employers. A policy shift requiring users to privately verify their real names is raising privacy concerns...

Automakers Are Telling Your Insurance Company How You Really Drive

Plus: The operator of a dark-web cryptocurrency “mixing” service is found guilty, and a US senator reveals that popular safes contain secret backdoors...

Sinking Section 702 Wiretap Program Offered One Last Lifeboat

For months, US lawmakers have examined every side of a historic surveillance debate. With the introduction of the SAFE Act, all that’s left to do now is vote...

The ‘Emergency Powers’ Risk of a Second Trump Presidency

Every US president has the ability to invoke “emergency powers” that could give an authoritarian leader the ability to censor the internet, restrict travel, and more...

There Are Dark Corners of the Internet. Then There's 764

A global network of violent predators is hiding in plain sight, targeting children on major platforms, grooming them, and extorting them to commit horrific acts of abuse...

Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

The US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has vacated an injunction against an age-verification requirement to view internet porn in Texas...

US Lawmaker Cited NYC Protests in a Defense of Warrantless Spying

A closed-door presentation for House lawmakers late last year portrayed American anti-war protesters as having possible ties to Hamas in an effort to kill privacy reforms to a major US spy program...

Binance’s Top Crypto Crime Investigator Is Being Detained in Nigeria

Tigran Gambaryan, a former crypto-focused US federal agent, and a second Binance executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, have been held in Abuja without passports for two weeks...

The 4 Big Questions the Pentagon’s New UFO Report Fails to Answer

The Pentagon says it’s not hiding aliens, but it stops notably short of saying what it is hiding. Here are the key questions that remain unanswered—some answers could be weirder than UFOs...