US president Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Wednesday aimed at preventing a handful of countries, including China, North Korea, and Russia, from purchasing sensitive information about Americans through commercial data brokers in the United States. Administration officials say categories of sensitive data, including personal identifiers, precise location …
Read More »Dictators Used Sandvine Tech to Censor the Internet. The US Finally Did Something About It
When the Egyptian government shut down the internet in 2011 to give itself cover to crush a popular protest movement, it was Nora Younis who got the word out. Younis, then a journalist with daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, found a working internet connection at the InterContinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel that …
Read More »How a Right-Wing Controversy Could Sabotage US Election Security
The meeting between top US election officials and their cybersecurity partners from the federal government almost went off without a hitch. Then Mac Warner spoke up. Warner, West Virginia’s Republican secretary of state, didn’t have a mundane logistical question for the government representatives, who were speaking at the winter meeting …
Read More »A Mysterious Leak Exposed Chinese Hacking Secrets
Today marks two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This week, we detailed the growing crisis in Eastern Ukraine, which is now littered with deadly mines. As it fights back the invading Russian forces, Ukraine’s government is working to develop new mine-clearing technology that could help save …
Read More »Leak Reveals the Unusual Path of ‘Urgent’ Russian Threat Warning
A decision by US House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) chair Mike Turner to sound the alarm over space-based Russian military research was far more extraordinary than previously reported. A WIRED review of an internal messaging system used by the United States Congress shows that HPSCI rarely sends members invites to review …
Read More »A Top White House Cyber Official Sees the ‘Promise and Peril’ in AI
When Anne Neuberger stepped into the newly created role of deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology on the White House’s National Security Council at the start of the Biden administration, she was already one of the government’s most experienced cyber veterans. Neuberger spent a decade at the …
Read More »The Danger Lurking Just Below Ukraine's Surface
Oleksandr Kryvtsov had enough. The owner of an agricultural company in Hrakove, near Kharkiv, Kryvtsov found his land littered with land mines. That region of Ukraine, occupied by Russian forces for nearly eight months, had been pockmarked with explosive ordinances. The threat meant that farmers like Kryvtsov had to let …
Read More »How to Not Get Scammed Out of $50,000
Americans were warned this week about a potential “urgent threat” to the United States, which was later linked to a Russian effort to develop the capability to launch nuclear weapons in space. While no one has disputed the authenticity of the threat, WIRED has learned that the leak was part …
Read More »SpaceX Launched Military Satellites Designed to Track Hypersonic Missiles
Two prototype satellites for the Missile Defense Agency and four missile-tracking satellites for the US Space Force rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Wednesday from Florida's Space Coast. These satellites are part of a new generation of spacecraft designed to track hypersonic missiles launched by China or Russia …
Read More »Leak of Russian ‘Threat’ Part of a Bid to Kill US Surveillance Reform, Sources Say
The latest botched effort at salvaging a controversial US surveillance program collapsed this week thanks to a sabotage campaign by the United States House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI), crushing any hope of unraveling the program’s fate before Congress pivots to prevent a government shutdown in March. An agreement struck between rival …
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