The AI-Generated Child Abuse Nightmare Is Here

Thousands of child abuse images are being created with AI. New images of old victims are appearing, as criminals trade datasets...

A Powerful Tool US Spies Misused to Stalk Women Faces Its Potential Demise

Though often viewed as the “crown jewel” of the US intelligence community, fresh reports of abuse by NSA employees and chaos in the US Congress put the tool's future in jeopardy...

A Controversial Plan to Scan Private Messages for Child Abuse Meets Fresh Scandal

An EU government body is pushing a proposal to combat child sexual abuse material that has significant privacy implications. Its lead advocate is making things even messier...

They Cracked the Code to a Locked USB Drive Worth $235 Million in Bitcoin. Then It Got Weird

Stefan Thomas lost the password to an encrypted USB drive holding 7,002 bitcoins. One team of hackers believes they can unlock it—if they can get Thomas to let them...

The Hamas Threat of Hostage Execution Videos Looms Large Over Social Media

Hamas has threatened to broadcast videos of hostage executions. With the war between Israel and Hamas poised to enter a new phase, are social platforms ready?...

The 23andMe User Data Leak May Be Far Worse Than Believed

Plus: IT workers secretly funnel money to North Korea, a court in the US upholds keyword search warrants, and WhatsApp gets a passwordless upgrade on Android...

The Dangerous Mystery of Hamas’ Missing ‘Suicide Drones’

Hamas has long touted its military drones, but little is known about the true scale of the threat. The answer may have consequences for people on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border...

Citing Hamas, the US Wants to Treat Crypto "Mixers" as Suspected Money Launderers

With a new emphasis on the Hamas attacks on Israel, the US Treasury has proposed designating foreign cryptocurrency “mixer” services as money launderers and national security threats...

Who’s Responsible for the Gaza Hospital Explosion? Here’s Why It’s Hard to Know What’s Real

A flood of false information, partisan narratives, and weaponized “fact-checking" has obscured efforts to find out who’s responsible for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza...

Elon Musk’s Main Tool for Fighting Disinformation on X Is Making the Problem Worse, Insiders Claim

X is promoting Community Notes to solve its disinformation problems, but some former employees and people who currently contribute notes say it’s not fit for that purpose...

They Supported Air Strike Victims. Then They Were Doxed and Arrested

Myanmar’s military junta is increasing surveillance and violating basic human rights. The combination of physical and digital surveillance is reaching dangerous new levels...

Deepfake Porn Is Out of Control

New research shows the number of deepfake videos is skyrocketing—and the world's biggest search engines are funneling clicks to dozens of sites dedicated to the nonconsensual fakes...

The US Congress Was Targeted With Predator Spyware

Plus: Hamas raised millions in crypto, Exxon used hacked data, and more...

Rumors of a ‘Global Day of Jihad’ Have Unleashed a Dangerous Wave of Disinformation

The rapid spread of violent videos and photos, combined with a toxic stew of mis- and disinformation, now threatens to spill over into real-world violence...

US House Republicans Had Their Phones Confiscated to Stop Leaks

In an attempt to wrest control from raucous far-right hardliners amid the fight for a new House speaker, Republican Party leaders are instituting phone bans to keep backroom deals secret...

HTTP/2 Rapid Reset: A New Protocol Vulnerability Will Haunt the Web for Years

Dubbed “HTTP/2 Rapid Reset,” the flaw requires issuing patches to virtually every web server around the world before the problem can be eradicated...

New Clues Suggest Stolen FTX Funds Went to Russia-Linked Money Launderers

Whoever looted FTX on the day of its bankruptcy has now moved the stolen money through a long string of intermediaries—and eventually some that look Russian in origin...

A Graphic Hamas Video Donald Trump Jr. Shared on X Is Actually Real, Research Confirms

A video posted by Donald Trump Jr. showing Hamas militants attacking Israelis was falsely flagged in a Community Note as being years old, thus making X's disinformation problem worse, not better...

The UN Risks Normalizing Internet Censorship

The United Nations' top internet governance body will allegedly host its next two annual meetings in countries known for repressive internet policies and human rights abuses...

Elon Musk Is Personally Undermining X’s Efforts to Curb Israel-Hamas War Disinformation

X’s Trust and Safety team says it’s working to remove false information related to the Israel-Hamas war. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is sharing conspiracies and chatting with QAnon promoters...

Google Makes Passkeys Default, Stepping Up Its Push to Kill Passwords

Google is making passkeys, the emerging passwordless login technology, the default option for users as it moves to make passwords “obsolete.”...

Activist Hackers Are Racing Into the Israel-Hamas War—for Both Sides

Since the conflict escalated, hackers have targeted dozens of government websites and media outlets with defacements and DDoS attacks, and attempted to overload targets with junk traffic to bring them down...

The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation

People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen...

Inside FTX’s All-Night Race to Stop a $1 Billion Crypto Heist

The same chaotic day FTX declared bankruptcy, someone began stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from its coffers. A WIRED investigation reveals the company’s “very crazy night” trying to stop them...

Israel's Failure to Stop the Hamas Attack Shows the Danger of Too Much Surveillance

Hundreds dead, thousands wounded—Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel shows the limits of even the most advanced and invasive surveillance dragnets as full-scale war erupts...

Apple's Encryption Is Under Attack by a Mysterious Group

Plus: Sony confirms a breach of its networks, US federal agents get caught illegally using phone location data, and more...

White Supremacist Active Clubs Are Breeding on Telegram

A “friendlier” front for racist extremism has spread rapidly across the US in recent months, as active club channels network on Telegram's encrypted messaging app...

23andMe User Data Stolen in Targeted Attack on Ashkenazi Jews

At least a million data points from 23andMe accounts appear to have been exposed on BreachForums. While the scale of the campaign is unknown, 23andMe says it's working to verify the data...

The Team Helping Women Fight Digital Domestic Abuse

Location-enabled tech designed to make our lives easier is often exploited by domestic abusers. Refuge, a UK nonprofit, helps women to leave abusive relationships, secure their devices, and stay safe...

How Neuralink Keeps Dead Monkey Photos Secret

Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup conducted years of tests at UC Davis, a public university. A WIRED investigation reveals how Neuralink and the university keep the grisly images of test subjects hidden...

Your Cheap Android TV Streaming Box May Have a Dangerous Backdoor

New research has found that some streaming devices and dozens of Android and iOS apps are secretly being used for fraud and other cybercrime...

The Biggest Hack of 2023 Keeps Getting Bigger

Victims of the MOVEit breach continue to come forward. But the full scale of the attack is still unknown...

Predictive Policing Software Terrible at Predicting Crimes

A software company sold a New Jersey police department an algorithm that was right less than 1 percent of the time...

How to Stop Google Bard From Storing Your Data and Location

Checking out this AI chatbot's new features? Make sure to keep these privacy tips in mind during your interactions...

How to Tell When Your Phone Will Stop Getting Security Updates

Every smartphone has an expiration date. Here’s when yours will probably come...

Chinese Hackers Are Hiding in Routers in the US and Japan

Plus: Stolen US State Department emails, $20 million zero-day flaws, and controversy over the EU’s message-scanning law...

Apple, Microsoft, and Google Just Fixed Multiple Zero-Day Flaws

Plus: Mozilla patches 10 Firefox bugs, Cisco fixes a vulnerability with a rare maximum severity score, and SAP releases updates to stamp out three highly critical flaws...

US Justice Department Urged to Investigate Gunshot Detector Purchases

A civil liberties group has asked the DOJ to investigate deployment of the ShotSpotter gunfire-detection system, which research shows is often installed in predominantly Black neighborhoods...

SoundThinking, Maker of ShotSpotter, Is Buying Parts of PredPol Creator Geolitica

SoundThinking is purchasing parts of Geolitica, the company that created PredPol. Experts say the acquisition marks a new era of companies dictating how police operate...

Risk of a US Government Shutdown Is Fueled by Very Online Republicans

Egged on by a far-reaching conservative media ecosystem, right-wing hardliners are forcing Washington to bend to their reality as the federal government careens toward a possible shutdown...

Satellite Images Show the Devastating Cost of Sudan’s Aerial War

As civil conflict continues in and above the streets of Khartoum, satellite images from the Conflict Observatory at Yale University have captured the catastrophic damage...

A Tricky New Way to Sneak Past Repressive Internet Censorship

With the number of internet blackouts on the rise, cybersecurity firm eQualitie figured out how to hide censored online news in satellite TV signals...

Your Boss’s Spyware Could Train AI to Replace You

Corporations are using software to monitor employees on a large scale. Some experts fear the data these tools collect could be used to automate people out of their jobs...

The Shocking Data on Kia and Hyundai Thefts in the US

Plus: MGM hackers hit more than just casinos, Microsoft researchers accidentally leak terabytes of data, and China goes on the PR offensive over cyberespionage...

Chinese Spies Infected Dozens of Networks With Thumb Drive Malware

Security researchers found USB-based Sogu espionage malware spreading within African operations of European and US firms...

You Need to Update Google Chrome or Whatever Browser You Use

Plus: Spyware-packing ads, TikTok GDPR violations, Elon Musk investigations, and more...

Massive MGM and Caesars Hacks Epitomize a Vicious Ransomware Cycle

Cyberattacks on casinos grab attention, but a steady stream of less publicized attacks leave vulnerable victims struggling to recover...

The US Congress Has Trust Issues. Generative AI Is Making It Worse

Senators are meeting with Silicon Valley's elite to learn how to deal with AI. But can Congress tackle the rapidly emerging tech before working on itself?...

The Twisted Eye in the Sky Over Buenos Aires

A scandal unfolding in Argentina shows the dangers of implementing facial recognition—even with laws and limits in place...

China-Linked Hackers Breached a Power Grid—Again

Signs suggest the culprits worked within a notorious Chinese hacker group that may have also hacked Indian electric utilities years earlier...