ICE Seeks Cyber Upgrade to Better Surveil and Investigate Its Employees

The agency plans to renew a sweeping cybersecurity contract that includes expanded employee monitoring as the government escalates leak investigations and casts internal dissent as a threat...

The Ultra-Realistic AI Face Swapping Platform Driving Romance Scams

Capable of creating “nearly perfect” face swaps during live video chats, Haotian has made millions, mainly via Telegram. But its main channel vanished after WIRED's inquiry into scammers using the app...

Border Patrol Bets on Small Drones to Expand US Surveillance Reach

Federal records show CBP is moving from testing small drones to making them standard surveillance tools, expanding a network that can follow activity in real time and extend well beyond the border...

Microsoft Will Finally Kill an Encryption Cipher That Enabled a Decade of Windows Hacks

The weak RC4 for administrative authentication has been a hacker holy grail for decades...

AI Toys for Kids Talk About Sex, Drugs, and Chinese Propaganda

Plus: Travelers to the US may have to hand over five years of social media history, South Korean CEOs are resigning due to cyberattacks, and more...

Warnings Mount in Congress Over Expanded US Wiretap Powers

Experts tell US lawmakers that a crucial spy program’s safeguards are failing, allowing intel agencies deeper, unconstrained access to Americans’ data...

Doxers Posing as Cops Are Tricking Big Tech Firms Into Sharing People’s Private Data

A spoofed email address and an easily faked document is all it takes for major tech companies to hand over your most personal information...

2 Men Linked to China’s Salt Typhoon Hacker Group Likely Trained in a Cisco ‘Academy’

The names of two partial owners of firms linked to the Salt Typhoon hacker group also appeared in records for a Cisco training program—years before the group targeted Cisco’s devices in a spy campaign...

A Complete Guide to the Jeffrey Epstein Document Dumps

New records about the infamous sex offender are released seemingly every week. Here’s a quick rundown of who’s releasing the Epstein documents, what they contain—and what they’re releasing next...

The US Won't Sanction China for Salt Typhoon Hacking

Plus: Officials warn of a disturbingly stealthy Chinese malware specimen, a CISA nomination stalls, and more...

Huge Trove of Nude Images Leaked by AI Image Generator Startup’s Exposed Database

An AI image generator startup’s database was left accessible to the open internet, revealing more than 1 million images and videos, including photos of real people who had been “nudified.”...

‘Signalgate’ Inspector General Report Wants Just One Change to Avoid a Repeat Debacle

The United States Inspector General report reviewing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s text messaging mess recommends a single change to keep classified material secure...

Cloudflare Has Blocked 416 Billion AI Bot Requests Since July 1

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince claims the internet infrastructure company’s efforts to block AI crawlers are already seeing big results...

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...

A New Anonymous Phone Carrier Lets You Sign Up With Nothing but a Zip Code

Privacy stalwart Nicholas Merrill spent a decade fighting an FBI surveillance order. Now he wants to sell you phone service—without knowing almost anything about you...

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Is Detaining People for ICE

Louisiana’s hunting and wildlife authority is one of more than 1,000 state and local agencies that have partnered with US immigration authorities this year alone...

Russia Wants This Mega Missile to Intimidate the West, but It Keeps Crashing

One of Vladimir Putin’s favorite sabers to rattle seems to have lost its edge...

Your Data Might Determine How Much You Pay for Eggs

A newly enacted New York law requires retailers to say whether your data influences the price of basic goods like a dozen eggs or toilet paper, but not how...

Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build Its Surveillance AI

An accidental leak revealed that Flock, which has cameras in thousands of US communities, is using workers in the Philippines to review and classify footage...

The WIRED Guide to Digital Opsec for Teens

Practicing good “operations security” is essential to staying safe online. Here's a complete guide for teenagers and anyone else who wants to button up their digital lives...

Poems Can Trick AI Into Helping You Make a Nuclear Weapon

It turns out all the guardrails in the world won’t protect a chatbot from meter and rhyme...

3 Best VPN for iPhone (2025), Tested and Reviewed

There are dozens of iPhone VPNs at your disposal, but these are the services that will actually keep your browsing safe...

The Destruction of a Notorious Myanmar Scam Compound Appears to Have Been ‘Performative’

Myanmar’s military has been blowing up parts of the KK Park scam compound. Experts say the actions are likely for show...

ICE Offers Up to $280 Million to Immigrant-Tracking ‘Bounty Hunter’ Firms

Immigration and Customs Enforcement lifted a $180 million cap on a proposed immigrant-tracking program while guaranteeing multimillion-dollar payouts for private surveillance firms...

Amazon Is Using Specialized AI Agents for Deep Bug Hunting

Born out of an internal hackathon, Amazon’s Autonomous Threat Analysis system uses a variety of specialized AI agents to detect weaknesses and propose fixes to the company’s platforms...

US Border Patrol Is Spying on Millions of American Drivers

Plus: The SEC lets SolarWinds off the hook, Microsoft stops a historic DDoS attack, and FBI documents reveal the agency spied on an immigration activist Signal group in New York City...

This Hacker Conference Installed a Literal Antivirus Monitoring System

At New Zealand's Kawaiicon cybersecurity convention, organizers hacked together a way for attendees to track CO2 levels throughout the venue—even before they arrived...

4 People Indicted in Alleged Conspiracy to Smuggle Supercomputers and Nvidia Chips to China

A federal prosecutor alleged that one defendant boasted that his father “had engaged in similar business for the Chinese Communist Party.”...

With the Rise of AI, Cisco Sounds an Urgent Alarm About the Risks of Aging Tech

Generative AI is making it even easier for attackers to exploit old and often forgotten network equipment. Replacing it takes investment, but Cisco is making the case that it’s worth it...

WIRED Roundup: DHS’s Privacy Breach, AI Romantic Affairs, and Google Sues Text Scammers

In this episode of Uncanny Valley, we discuss our scoop about how the Department of Homeland Security illegally collected Chicago residents’ data for months, as well as the news of the week...

Vaping Is ‘Everywhere’ in Schools—Sparking a Bathroom Surveillance Boom

Schools in the US are installing vape-detection tech in bathrooms to thwart student nicotine and cannabis use. A new investigation reveals the impact of using spying to solve a problem...

A Simple WhatsApp Security Flaw Exposed 3.5 Billion Phone Numbers

By plugging tens of billions of phone numbers into WhatsApp’s contact discovery tool, researchers found “the most extensive exposure of phone numbers” ever—along with profile photos and more...

A Major Leak Spills a Chinese Hacking Contractor’s Tools and Targets

Plus: State-sponsored AI hacking is here, Google hosts a CBP face recognition app, and more of the week’s top security news...

DOJ Issued Seizure Warrant to Starlink Over Satellite Internet Systems Used at Scam Compound

A new US law enforcement initiative is aimed at crypto fraudsters targeting Americans—and now seeks to seize infrastructure it claims is crucial to notorious scam compounds...

DHS Kept Chicago Police Records for Months in Violation of Domestic Espionage Rules

The Department of Homeland Security collected data on Chicago residents accused of gang ties to test if police files could feed an FBI watchlist. Months passed before anyone noticed it wasn’t deleted...

This Is the Platform Google Claims Is Behind a 'Staggering’ Scam Text Operation

Google is suing 25 people it alleges are behind a “relentless” scam text operation that uses a phishing-as-a-service platform called Lighthouse...

The Government Shutdown Is a Ticking Cybersecurity Time Bomb

Many critical systems are still being maintained, and the cloud provides some security cover. But experts say that any lapses in protections like patching and monitoring could expose government systems...

Mexico City Is the Most Video-Surveilled Metropolis in the Americas

Despite 83,000 public cameras, crime in Mexico City remains high—and widespread surveillance raises myriad ethical issues...

Scam Ads Are Flooding Social Media. These Former Meta Staffers Have a Plan

Rob Leathern and Rob Goldman, who both worked at Meta, are launching a new nonprofit that aims to bring transparency to an increasingly opaque, scam-filled social media ecosystem...

Zohran Mamdani Just Inherited the NYPD Surveillance State

In addition to affordability, New York City’s mayor-elect will be forced to reckon with the NYPD’s sweeping mass surveillance operations...

FBI Warns of Criminals Posing as ICE, Urges Agents to ID Themselves

In a bulletin to law enforcement agencies, the FBI said criminal impersonators are exploiting ICE’s image and urged nationwide coordination to distinguish real operations from fakes...

An Anarchist’s Conviction Offers a Grim Foreshadowing of Trump’s War on the ‘Left’

As the Trump administration ramps up its targeting of left-leaning people and groups, the prosecution and harsh sentencing of Casey Goonan may provide a glimpse of things to come...

Hack Exposes Kansas City’s Secret Police Misconduct List

A major breach of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department reveals, for the first time, a list of alleged officer misconduct including dishonesty, sexual harassment, excessive force, and false arrest...

How to Hack a Poker Game

This week on Uncanny Valley, we break down how one of the most common card shufflers could be altered to cheat, and why that matters—even for those who don’t frequent the poker table...

ICE Wants to Build a Shadow Deportation Network in Texas

A new ICE proposal outlines a 24/7 transport operation run by armed contractors—turning Texas into the logistical backbone of an industrialized deportation machine...

NASA’s Quiet Supersonic Jet Takes Flight

The X-59 successfully completed its inaugural flight—a step toward developing quieter supersonic jets that could one day fly customers more than twice as fast as commercial airliners...

8 Best Password Managers (2025), Tested and Reviewed

Keep your logins locked down with our favorite password management apps for PC, Mac, Android, iPhone, and web browsers...

The Microsoft Azure Outage Shows the Harsh Reality of Cloud Failures

The second major cloud outage in less than two weeks, Azure’s downtime highlights the “brittleness” of a digital ecosystem that depends on a few companies never making mistakes...

Ex-L3Harris Cyber Boss Pleads Guilty to Selling Trade Secrets to Russian Firm

Peter Williams, a former executive of Trenchant, L3Harris’ cyber division, has pleaded guilty to two counts of stealing trade secrets and selling them to an unnamed Russian software broker...

CBP Searched a Record Number of Phones at the US Border Over the Past Year

The total number of US Customs and Border Protection device searches jumped by 17 percent over the 2024 fiscal year, but more invasive forensic searches remain relatively rare...