http://www.viruslist.com/analysis?pubid=191951869(((Makes for edifying if rather melancholy reading.)))"Superficially at least, the second quarter of 2006 appeared to be one of the most peaceful in recent years. Significant email or network worm epidemics were almost completely non-existent, and the majority of leading antivirus vendors released either beta or fully functional new generation products. Virus writers took time off to develop new methods of combating anti-virus programs. Because of this, the main battles were fought over technical issues, and were invisible to normal users. However, sometimes the aftermath of these hidden wars reached the print, broadcast, and most frequently the online media. This report provides a more detailed look at the events which remained in the shadows and those which attracted the attention both of users and antivirus manufacturers."
‘Nightmare Scenario’: Zero-Click Spyware Is Infecting Phones via Targeted Ads
Researchers at The Citizen Lab have for the first time released technical evidence of sophisticated mercenary spyware being distributed via online advertising.
Matt Burgess
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
‘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
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
Wikipedians Believed AI Would Come and Go. They Were Wrong
In a world of AI Overviews, Wikipedia usage declines. But the real loss may be far more existential than website traffic.
Richard Cooke
Please Let the Internet Die
Online spaces are captured by oligarchs and saturated with slop—and they’re exacerbating humanity’s worst impulses. It’s time to start over.
Miles Klee
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
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
Mistral Says Its AI Model ‘Le Chonk’ Has Leapfrogged China in the Open-Weight Race
The French AI lab claims its latest release matches or outperforms even the best models from DeepSeek and Z.ai in coding and cybersecurity.
Joel Khalili
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
WIRED Ghost Stories
Five hauntings from the other side of technology.
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