Security, Spoken

The prominent hacker and Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith was arrested by the US government Friday after he spoke at an April conference on blockchain technologies in North Korea. The US government considers his presentation to be a transfer of technology—and therefore a violation of US sanctions. But Griffith's defenders, including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, describe the arrest as a mass...

Ewoks. Just saying the name evokes myriad emotions in Star Wars fans. For some, the bear-like creatures that first appeared in 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi are part of the franchise’s rich tapestry. Others consider the Ewoks a blight and would prefer they not exist at all. (Some fan edits of Return of the Jedi excise the Ewoks entirely, for crying out loud.) They’re the most controversial...

What was the last thing you searched for online? For me, it was "$120 in pounds." Before that, I wanted to know the capital of Albania (Tirana), the Twitter handle of Liberal Democrat deputy leader Ed Davey (he’s @EdwardJDavey), and dates of bank holidays in the UK for 2019 (it’s a late Easter next year, folks). Thrilling, I’m sure you’ll agree. But something makes these searches, in internet term...

As we draw ever-closer to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all the shopping days in between, you'll have no shortage of cheap, flashy, internet-connected gadgets to choose from for holiday gifts. But in the frenzy, don't forget that the widgets you buy will live at recipients' houses—or on their wrists—for months or years to come. With that in mind, it's worth considering security and privacy risks...

For almost three years starting in the fall of 2015, a 56-year-old Chinese-American tour guide named Xueha "Edward" Peng would periodically carry out a strange errand: Every few months, he'd book a room at a certain designated hotel—first in California and later in Georgia—and leave $10,000 or $20,000 in cash in the room, inside a dresser drawer or taped to the bottom of a desk or TV stand. Learn...

Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that the impeachment inquiry had “poisoned the minds of fanatics,” and he was absolutely right—but not quite in the way that he meant. His comments, aimed at Democrats, instead came across in the hearing as projection, a sad summation of the intellectual rot that has spread through his own party during the Trump age...

In the Harry Potter universe, there’s a handy spell for when you need to stop someone from spilling your secret plans or shit-talking during a duel. It’s called Mimblewimble, otherwise known as the tongue-tying curse. It’s also the name of a privacy technology designed for cryptocurrencies—because, well, somebody’s gotta keep crypto weird. The first coins to use Mimblewimble—distinct efforts calle...

Black Friday attracts crowds, and crowds attract scammers, and that means you need to take extra care when shopping online over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. There'll be people out there keen to relieve you of more money than you'll save on a TV set or a gaming console. The following precautions apply whatever the time of year, but it's worth reminding yourself of them every time a se...

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Users increasingly encounter moments when a website asks for permission to gather some personal data or access to their device hardware: "Can we access your GPS position? Your microphone or camera? Your Bluetooth? Can we send you push notifications about breaking news or premium chocolate subscription offers?" Permissions, as these asks are known, give the web exciting powers. Learn more about you...

Iranian hackers have carried out some of the most disruptive acts of digital sabotage of the last decade, wiping entire computer networks in waves of cyberattacks across the Middle East and occasionally even the US. But now one of Iran's most active hacker groups appears to have shifted focus. Rather than just standard IT networks, they're targeting the physical control systems used in electric ut...

The reports came just a few days after Disney+ launched: Thousands of the streaming service accounts were already up for sale on various hacking forums, at bargain basement prices. As of Wednesday, new victims were still taking to Twitter and other venues to express their frustration that their accounts had been taken over. What’s happening almost certainly isn’t a hack in the way you’d normally t...

Back in 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled that it's illegal for the police to attach a GPS tracking device to someone's car without a warrant. But what if you find a GPS tracking device on your car? Can you remove it? ARS TECHNICA This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Con...

It's increasingly common for the data that passes between your browser and a website's server to be encrypted with HTTPS, which makes it impossible for outside snoops to read. But you don't get that protection if the URL drops that crucial "S" after HTTP. And while some mechanisms do redirect you to an encrypted version of a site, they often do so only after exposing that initial request. The make...

Android users are groaning and websites are moaning, but first: a cartoon about what to do with a broken laptop. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News 146 new vulnerabilities all come preinstalled on Android phones Security firm Kryptowire discovered 146 vulnerabilities—across 29 Andro...

When you buy an Android smartphone, it’s rarely pure Android. Manufacturers squeeze in their own apps or give it a fresh coat of interface. Carriers do it too. The resulting stew of preinstalled software and vanilla Android sometimes turns out to be rancid, putting flaws and vulnerabilities on the phone before you even take it out of the box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices....

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In 2016 Brendan Eich, the controversial creator of the JavaScript programming language and cofounder and former CTO of Mozilla, announced the launch of a new browser called Brave. The pitch was simple but ambitious: Brave would block invasive ads and tracking scripts, but it would also show its own, privacy-friendly ads in their place. And it would cut both publishers and users in on the proceeds....

Android has a bit of a malware problem. The open ecosystem's flexibility also makes it relatively easy for tainted apps to circulate on third-party app stores or malicious websites. Worse still, malware-ridden apps sneak into the official Play Store with disappointing frequency. After grappling with the issue for a decade, Google is calling in some reinforcements. Learn more about your ad choices....

It's not yet prime time for 5G networks, which still face logistical and technical hurdles, but they're increasingly coming online in major cities worldwide. Which is why it's especially worrying that new 5G vulnerabilities are being discovered almost by the dozen. At the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Computer and Communications Security in London today researchers are presen...

In charges released Wednesday, the Justice Department accused two former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo and Ali Alzabarah, of abusing their internal system privileges to spy on target users and pass the information they collected to Saudi Arabia. The criminal complaint also alleges that it was trivial for them to do so—a chilling reminder of how much damage an insider can cause. Learn more abou...

Valentine’s Day is a high-pressure event dreaded by millions—precisely the type of holiday you may not want to relive, unless you sell flowers for a living. But that’s exactly what happened to many people across the United States on Thursday, when they awoke to find that their phones had suddenly sent or received text messages originally intended to be sent around February 14. Learn more about you...

Pour one out for the OG Google Pixel 1. This month's Android security patches are out, and while you'll find bulletins covering the Pixel 2, 3, and 4, the original Google Pixel didn't make the cut. Google is ending support this month. ARS TECHNICA This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's p...

Scammers are actively exploiting a bug in Firefox that causes the browser to lock up after displaying a message warning that the computer is running a pirated version of Windows that has been hacked. The message, which appears without any any user interaction upon visiting a site, reads: Please stop and do not close the PC … The registry key of your computer is locked. Why did we block your comput...

With hackers deploying sophisticated attacks against operating systems, processors, and even firmware, manufacturers have increasingly turned to a tamper-resistant processor—or part of one—often called a "secure enclave" to stymie all sorts of attacks. They place in that immutable chip the "root of trust" on a device, relying on it to run cryptographic checks every time the system starts to make s...