For nearly a decade, cybersecurity professionals and privacy advocates have recommended the end-to-end encrypted communications app Signal as the gold standard for truly private digital communications. Using it, however, has paradoxically required exposing one particular piece of private information to everyone you text or call: a phone number. Now, that's …
Read More »A Global Police Operation Just Took Down the Notorious LockBit Ransomware Gang
For the past four years, the LockBit ransomware group has been on an unrelenting rampage, hacking into thousands of businesses, schools, medical facilities, and governments around the world—and making millions in the process. A children’s hospital, Boeing, the UK’s Royal Mail, and sandwich chain Subway have all been recent victims. …
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 …
Read More »Elon Musk’s X Gave Check Marks to Terrorist Group Leaders, Report Says
A watchdog group's investigation found that terrorist group Hezbollah and other US-sanctioned entities have accounts with paid check marks on X, the Elon Musk–owned social network that still resides at the Twitter.com domain. The Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit that is critical of Big Tech companies, said in a report …
Read More »Surveillance Fight Pits the White House Opposite Reproductive Rights
One of the foremost women’s advocacy groups in the United States is urging members of Congress to support a ban on government agencies using private data brokers to acquire access to Americans’ private data without a warrant, a response that came late Tuesday following explosive revelations about the surveillance of …
Read More »‘AI Girlfriends’ Are a Privacy Nightmare
You shouldn’t trust any answers a chatbot sends you. And you probably shouldn’t trust it with your personal information either. That’s especially true for “AI girlfriends” or “AI boyfriends,” according to new research. An analysis into 11 so-called romance and companion chatbots, published on Wednesday by the Mozilla Foundation, has …
Read More »The Hidden Injustice of Cyberattacks
Talk about the promise and the peril of artificial intelligence is everywhere these days. But for many low-income families, communities of color, military veterans, people with disabilities, and immigrant communities, AI is a back-burner issue. Their day-to-day worries revolve around taking care of their health, navigating the economy, seeking educational …
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