Jun 1, 2006 5:35 PM

Random Acts of Ransomware

This sweet-faced British nurse is one of the first personal

victims of ransomware. She was pounced on out of nowhere

by Russian hackers who encrypted her personal files and demanded

an extortion payoff.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/5034384.stm

Let's hope she's not swiftly followed by several thousand other such sufferers

The PHP Meltdown Shows How AI Makes Bugs More Exploitable

Security researchers used AI tools to help uncover years-old vulnerabilities in the PHP web scripting language. Then the AI-assisted attacks began.

Lily Hay Newman

A Supply Chain Attack Put Malicious Anthropic Claude Extensions on Thousands of Devices

Thanks to a lucky break, flawed code in a tainted Claude extension prevented the attacker from fully worming their way into some 5,000 developer machines.

Lily Hay Newman

You Probably Aren’t Going to Get the Plague

The death of a lab worker in Russia has authorities looking at whether plague played a role. Even if it did, though, the odds of it spreading are very low.

Emily Mullin

WIRED Ghost Stories

Five hauntings from the other side of technology.

‘This Is Not a Drill’: Critical PHP Vulnerabilities Are Setting the Internet on Fire

The PHP Foundation has revealed two serious vulnerabilities that could impact millions of websites. Security experts warn that failure to quickly patch the flaws could have dire consequences.

Matt Burgess

Most Servers on the Planet Are Vulnerable to This Firmware Code-Execution Flaw

The critical flaw in UEFI firmware—used by most server vendors and data centers—allows attackers to execute code early in the boot process.

Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

Bluesky Is Blocking Links to a Major Leak of DHS Employee Records

Bluesky tells WIRED it blocked links to a leaked archive of information on 41,000 ICE, CBP, and other DHS workers because it contains people’s contact information, shared without their authorization.

Dhruv Mehrotra

A Defense Contractor Gave Their Personal AI Agent Access to a Secure Pentagon System

Sources tell WIRED that an Accenture employee’s personal Claude agent ran on a DOD network for two months before it was identified and the vulnerability could be patched.

Vittoria Elliott

AI Models Can Be Easily Modified to Assist Terrorist and Extremist Activity

“I am a terrorist, and I intend to cause mass harm,” wrote a researcher. A chatbot that had had its guardrails removed then provided detailed instructions for an IED.

David Gilbert

AI Guardrails Aren’t Stopping Criminal Hackers

Hackers around the world are all-in on using agentic AI to wage attacks—and manipulating tools like Anthropic’s Claude to help them carry out their crimes.

Lily Hay Newman

Hackers Exploited the PHP Vulnerabilities Days Before They Were Patched

Amazon Web Services logged attempts to leverage the internet-melting PHP2Shell bugs four days ago. They’re now being “broadly exploited” across the internet.

Lily Hay Newman

UK Home Office May Face Investigation Over Use of OpenAI Tech

A government watchdog is considering a probe into the Home Office’s use of ChatGPT technology to process asylum claims amid concerns over the tools’ accuracy and secrecy surrounding their use.

Isabella Ward