A Mysterious Leak Exposed Chinese Hacking Secrets

Plus: Scammers try to dupe Apple with 5,000 fake iPhones, Avast gets fined for selling browsing data, and researchers figure out how to clone fingerprints from your phone screen...

Here Are the Secret Locations of ShotSpotter Gunfire Sensors

The locations of microphones used to detect gunshots have been kept hidden from police and the public. A WIRED analysis of leaked coordinates confirms arguments critics have made against the technology...

Leak Reveals the Unusual Path of ‘Urgent’ Russian Threat Warning

The US Congress was preparing to vote on a key foreign surveillance program last week. Then a wild Russian threat appeared...

Apple iOS 17.4: iMessage Gets Post-Quantum Encryption in New Update

Useful quantum computers aren’t a reality—yet. But in one of the biggest deployments of post-quantum encryption so far, Apple is bringing the technology to iMessage...

Anne Neuberger, a Top White House Cyber Official, Sees the 'Promise and Peril' in AI

Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber, tells WIRED about emerging cybersecurity threats—and what the US plans to do about them...

Signal Finally Rolls Out Usernames, So You Can Keep Your Phone Number Private

We tested the end-to-end encrypted messenger’s new feature aimed at addressing critics’ most persistent complaint. Here’s how it works...

The Notorious Lockbit Ransomware Gang Has Been Disrupted by Law Enforcement

LockBit’s website, infrastructure, and data have been seized by law enforcement—striking a huge blow against one of the world’s most prolific ransomware groups...

The Danger Lurking Just Below Ukraine's Surface

The widespread use of mines has left Ukrainians scrambling to find ways to clear the explosives. New efforts to develop mine-clearing technology may help them push back Russia's invading forces...

How to Not Get Scammed Out of $50,000

Plus: State-backed hackers test out generative AI, the US takes down a major Russian military botnet, and 100 hospitals in Romania go offline amid a major ransomware attack...

SpaceX Launched Military Satellites Designed to Track Hypersonic Missiles

The prototype satellites hitched a ride on a Falcon 9 rocket...

Leak of Russian ‘Threat’ Part of a Bid to Kill US Surveillance Reform, Sources Say

A surprise disclosure of a national security threat by the House Intelligence chair was part of an effort to block legislation that aimed to limit cops and spies from buying Americans' private data...

Elon Musk’s X Gave Check Marks to Terrorist Group Leaders, Report Says

A new report cited 28 “verified” accounts on X that appear to be tied to sanctioned groups or individuals...

Section 702 Surveillance Fight Pits the White House Opposite Reproductive Rights

Prominent advocates for the rights of pregnant people are urging members of Congress to support legislation that would ban warrantless access to sensitive data as the White House fights against it...

‘AI Girlfriends’ Are a Privacy Nightmare

Romantic chatbots collect huge amounts of data, provide vague information about how they use it, use weak password protections, and aren’t transparent, new research from Mozilla says...

A Backroom Deal Looms Over Section 702 Surveillance Fight

Top congressional lawmakers are meeting in private to discuss the future of a widely unpopular surveillance program, worrying members devoted to reforming Section 702...

Satellite Images Point to Indiscriminate Israeli Attacks on Gaza’s Health Care Facilities

New research finds that Israel’s attacks on Gaza damaged hospitals and other medical facilities at the same rate as other buildings, potentially in violation of international law...

The Hidden Injustice of Cyberattacks

Cyberattacks and criminal scams can impact anyone. But communities of color and other marginalized groups are often disproportionately impacted and lack the support to better protect themselves...

2054, Part VI: Standoff at Arlington

“This eruption of violence had been brewing for years, through successive economic collapses, pandemics, and the utter dysfunction that had become American life.” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...

A Celebrated Cryptography-Breaking Algorithm Just Got an Upgrade

Two researchers have improved a well-known technique for lattice basis reduction, opening up new avenues for practical experiments in cryptography and mathematics...

How 3 Million ‘Hacked’ Toothbrushes Became a Cyber Urban Legend

Plus: China’s Volt Typhoon hackers lurked in US systems for years, the Biden administration’s crackdown on spyware vendors ramps up, and a new pro-Beijing disinformation campaign gets exposed...

2054, Part V: From Tokyo With Love

“Had this all been contrived? Had his life become a game in which everyone knew the rules but him?” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...

Epik, the Far Right's Favorite Web Host, Has a Shadowy New Owner

Known for doing business with far-right extremist websites, Epik has been acquired by a company that specializes in helping businesses keep their operations secret...

London Underground Is Testing Real-Time AI Surveillance Tools to Spot Crime

In a test at one station, Transport for London used a computer vision system to try and detect crime and weapons, people falling on the tracks, and fare dodgers, documents obtained by WIRED show...

I Stopped Using Passwords. It's Great—and a Total Mess

Passkeys are here to replace passwords. When they work, it’s a seamless vision of the future. But don’t ditch your old logins just yet...

2054, Part IV: A Nation Divided

“The people are in the streets. We can’t ignore them any longer. Really, we have little choice. Either we heal together, or we tear ourselves apart.” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...

Ransomware Payments Hit a Record $1.1 Billion in 2023

After a slowdown in payments to ransomware gangs in 2022, last year saw total ransom payouts jump to their highest level yet, according to a new report from crypto-tracing firm Chainalysis...

2054, Part III: The Singularity

“You’d have an incomprehensible level of computational, predictive, analytic, and psychic skill. You’d have the mind of God.” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...

WhatsApp Chats Will Soon Work With Other Encrypted Messaging Apps

New EU rules mean WhatsApp and Messenger must be interoperable with other chat apps. Here’s how that will work...

2054, Part II: Next Big Thing

“If molecules really were the new microchips, the promise of remote gene editing was that the body could be manipulated to upgrade itself.” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...

2054, Part I: Death of a President

“They had, quite swiftly, begun an algorithmic scrub of any narrative of the president suffering a health emergency, burying those stories.” An exclusive excerpt from 2054: A Novel...

China’s Hackers Keep Targeting US Water and Electricity Supplies

Plus: Russia was likely behind widespread GPS outages, Vault 7 leaker was sentenced, police claim to trace Monero cryptocurrency, and more...

The Mystery of the $400 Million FTX Heist May Have Been Solved

An indictment against three Americans suggests that at least some of the culprits behind the theft of an FTX crypto fortune may be in custody...

A Startup Allegedly ‘Hacked the World.’ Then Came the Censorship—and Now the Backlash

A loose coalition of anti-censorship voices is working to highlight reports of one Indian company’s hacker-for-hire past—and the legal threats aimed at making them disappear...

YouTube, Discord, and ‘Lord of the Rings’ Led Police to a Teen Accused of a US Swatting Spree

For nearly two years, police have been tracking down the culprit behind a wave of hoax threats. A digital trail took them to the door of a 17-year-old in California...

Apple and Google Just Patched Their First Zero-Day Flaws of the Year

Plus: Google fixes dozens of Android bugs, Microsoft rolls out nearly 50 patches, Mozilla squashes 15 Firefox flaws, and more...

Robots Are Fighting Robots in Russia's War in Ukraine

Aerial drones have changed the war in Ukraine. Now, both Russia’s and Ukraine’s militaries are deploying more unmanned ground robots—and the two are colliding...

US Lawmakers Tell DOJ to Quit Blindly Funding ‘Predictive’ Police Tools

Members of Congress say the DOJ is funding the use of AI tools that further discriminatory policing practices. They're demanding higher standards for federal grants...

23andMe Failed to Detect Account Intrusions for Months

Plus: North Korean hackers get into generative AI, a phone surveillance tool that can monitor billions of devices gets exposed, and ambient light sensors pose a new privacy risk...

Police Arrest Teen Said to Be Linked to Hundreds of Swatting Attacks

A California teenager who allegedly used the handle Torswats to carry out a nationwide swatting campaign is being extradited to Florida to face felony charges, WIRED has learned...

The Pentagon Tried to Hide That It Bought Americans’ Data Without a Warrant

US spy agencies purchased Americans’ phone location data and internet metadata without a warrant but only admitted it after a US senator blocked the appointment of a new NSA director...

Big-Name Targets Push Midnight Blizzard Hacking Spree Back Into the Limelight

Newly disclosed breaches of Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise highlight the persistent threat posed by Midnight Blizzard, a notorious Russian cyber-espionage group...

How a Group of Israel-Linked Hackers Has Pushed the Limits of Cyberwar

From repeatedly crippling thousands of gas stations to setting a steel mill on fire, Predatory Sparrow’s offensive hacking has now targeted Iranians with some of history's most aggressive cyberattacks...

Ring Will Stop Giving Cops a Free Pass on Warrantless Video Requests

The Amazon-owned home surveillance company says it is shuttering a feature in its Neighbors app that allows police to request footage from users. But it’s not shutting out the cops entirely...

Notorious Spyware Maker NSO Group Is Quietly Plotting a Comeback

NSO Group, creator of the infamous Pegasus spyware, is spending millions on lobbying in Washington while taking advantage of the crisis in Gaza to paint itself as essential for global security...

HP CEO Says They Brick Printers That Use Third-Party Ink Because of … Hackers

The company says it wants to protect you from “viruses.” Experts are skeptical...

Apple iOS 17.3: How to Turn on iPhone's New Stolen Device Protection

Apple’s iOS 17.3 introduces Stolen Device Protection to iPhones, which could stop phone thieves from taking over your accounts. Here’s how to enable it right now...

Cops Used DNA to Predict a Suspect’s Face—and Tried to Run Facial Recognition on It

Police around the US say they're justified to run DNA-generated 3D models of faces through facial recognition tools to help crack cold cases. Everyone but the cops thinks that’s a bad idea...

Fujitsu Bugs That Sent Innocent People to Prison Were Known ‘From the Start’

Software flaws were allegedly hidden from lawyers of wrongly convicted UK postal workers...

US Agencies Urged to Patch Ivanti VPNs That Are Actively Being Hacked

Plus: Microsoft says attackers accessed employee emails, Walmart fails to stop gift card fraud, “pig butchering” scams fuel violence in Myanmar, and more...

How to Opt Out of Comcast’s Xfinity Storing Your Sensitive Data

One of America’s largest internet providers may collect data about your political beliefs, race, and sexual orientation to serve personalized ads...