In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall began to fall, American artist Jim Sanborn was busy working on his Kryptos sculpture, a cryptographic puzzle wrapped in a riddle that he created for the CIA’s headquarters and that has been driving amateur and professional cryptographers mad ever since. To honor the 25th anniversary of the Wall’s […]
The post Finally, a New Clue to Solve the CIA’s Mysterious Kryptos Sculpture appeared first on WIRED.
Tonight, the lame duck senate still run by the democrats voted on the USA Freedom Act, a bipartisan-backed bill to usher in NSA reform.
The post Critical NSA Reform Bill Fails in the Senate appeared first on WIRED.
It’s bad enough the government has been skulking around in cars and vans with a little device that can impersonate a cell phone tower and track you. Now, in a move that should surprise no one, it’s taking to the skies to expand its tracking reach, in a move that would also allow it to […]
The post The Feds Are Now Using ‘Stingrays’ in Planes to Spy on Our Phone Calls appeared first on WIRED.
The hotel guest probably never knew what hit him. When he tried to get online using his five-star hotel’s WiFi network, he got a pop-up alerting him to a new Adobe software update. When he clicked to accept the download, he got a malicious executable instead. What he didn’t know was that the sophisticated attackers […]
The post DarkHotel: A Sophisticated New Hacking Attack Targets High-Profile Hotel Guests appeared first on WIRED.
According to researchers, the card system developed by VISA for use in the United Kingdom can be tricked into approving any transaction up to 999,999.99 as long as it’s requested in a foreign currency.
The post Flaw in New ‘Secure’ Credit Cards Would Let Hackers Steal $1M Per Card appeared first on WIRED.
In an excerpt from her new book, “Countdown to Zero Day,” WIRED’s Kim Zetter describes the dark path the world’s first digital weapon took to reach its target in Iran.
The post An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World’s First Digital Weapon appeared first on WIRED.
Radio-frequency hack developed by researchers in Israel would let attackers steal data remotely from even air-gapped computers not connected to the internet.
The post How Attackers Can Use Radio Signals and Mobile Phones to Steal Protected Data appeared first on WIRED.
The founder of the file-sharing site Pirate Bay was found guilty today in Denmark on hacking charges unrelated to the web site. Swedish national Gottfrid Svartholm was found guilty of hacking into servers belonging to the U.S. technology firm CSC after being partially acquitted of other hacking charges in Sweden. In the Danish case, Svartholm […]
The post Pirate Bay Founder Convicted on Hacking Charges, Sentenced to 3.5 Years appeared first on WIRED.
A school board in Tennessee is being accused of violating the constitutional rights of students over a policy that allows school officials to search any electronic devices students bring to campus and to monitor and control what students post on social media sites.
The post ACLU Calls Schools’ Policy to Search Devices and ‘Approve’ Kids’ Web Posts Unconstitutional appeared first on WIRED.
Wyden spoke with WIRED about the difficulties of keeping mum on classified matters, about his public showdown with intelligence chief James Clapper over the NSA’s data collection on Americans, and about the government’s use of zero-day exploits.
The post Pro-Privacy Senator Wyden on Fighting the NSA From Inside the System appeared first on WIRED.
Americans may have a Florida drug dealer to thank for expanding our right to privacy. Police departments around the country have been collecting phone metadata from telecoms and using a sophisticated spy tool to track people through their mobile phones—often without obtaining a warrant. But a new ruling out of Florida has curbed the activity […]
The post Cops Need a Warrant to Grab Your Cell Tower Data, Florida Court Rules appeared first on WIRED.
On a day when system administrators were already taxed addressing several security updates released by Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe, there is now word of a new security hole discovered in a basic protocol used for encrypting web traffic. Its name is POODLE, which stands for Padding Oracle on Downgraded Legacy Encryption, and it was discovered […]
The post There Is a New Security Vulnerability Named POODLE, and It Is Not Cute appeared first on WIRED.
A cyberespionage campaign believed to be based in Russia has been targeting government leaders and institutions for nearly five years, according to researchers with iSight Partners who have examined code used in the attacks. The campaign, dubbed “Sandworm” is believed to have been running since 2009, and used a wide-reaching zero-day exploit uncovered by the […]
The post Russian ‘Sandworm’ Hack Has Been Spying on Foreign Governments for Years appeared first on WIRED.
Human rights groups and technologists have long criticized Gamma International and the Italian firm Hacking Team for selling surveillance technology to repressive regimes, who use the tools to target political dissidents and human rights activists. Both companies say they sell their surveillance software only to law enforcement and intelligence agencies but that they won’t sell their software to every government. Gamma has, in fact, denied selling its tool to Bahrain, which has a long history of imprisoning and torturing political dissidents and human rights activists.
The post Bahraini Activists Hacked by Their Government Go After UK Spyware Maker appeared first on WIRED.
As a much-anticipated documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden premiers in New York this evening, new revelations are being published simultaneously that expose more information about the NSA’s work to compromise computer networks and devices. Newly-brought-to-light documents leaked by Snowden discuss operations by the NSA working inside China, Germany and South Korea to help physically […]
The post NSA May Have Undercover Operatives in Foreign Companies appeared first on WIRED.
Once those leaks are made to the media and published, why shouldn’t the public also be able to know when the information came from an authorized source or an unauthorized one?
The post NSA Mind-Bender: We Won’t Tell You What Info We Already Leaked to the Media appeared first on WIRED.
You own your data. And the government needs to start respecting that.
The post US Spy Programs May Break the Internet if Not Reformed, Google Leader Says appeared first on WIRED.
Twitter just sued the federal government over restrictions the government places on how much the company can disclose about surveillance requests it receives. For months, Twitter has tried to negotiate with the government to expand the kind of information that it and other companies are allowed to disclose. But it failed. Today, Twitter asserts in […]
The post Twitter Sues the Government for Violating Its First Amendment Rights appeared first on WIRED.
Mere days after a government crackdown on a spyware manufacturer comes the startling revelation that law enforcement agencies have been purchasing commercial spyware themselves and handing it out to the public for free. Police departments around the country have been distributing thousands of free copies of spyware to parents to monitor their children’s activity, a […]
The post Cops Are Handing Out Spyware to Parents—With Zero Oversight appeared first on WIRED.
The indictment this week of the man behind an app designed for surreptitiously monitoring cellphone activity is only the second federal case filed against someone involved in the commercial sale of so-called stalkingware. But the case could have negative implications for others who make and sell spyware and similar snooping tools, experts hope.
The post The Criminal Indictment That Could Finally Hit Spyware Makers Hard appeared first on WIRED.
