Spime Watch: Stickybits

Researchers at The Citizen Lab have for the first time released technical evidence of sophisticated mercenary spyware being distributed via online advertising.

Anti-cybercrime initiatives are increasingly using AI to scam the scammers by tricking them into talking to lifelike bots that they think are real victims.

Amid a wave of backlash, some industry-friendly groups are employing creative and time-tested strategies to woo the youth.

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

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.

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.

Warhound came out of stealth on Wednesday with $200 million in funding and a mission to create “elite working dogs” equipped with "advanced body armor."

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

Soon, hundreds of new top-level domains, including .meow and .fart, could be added to the internet. WIRED goes inside the backroom shenanigans of ICANN, the organization at the helm.

The US government’s Tradewinds initiative has made it easier to throw millions of dollars at “nontraditional” defense contractors, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

Powerful AI models continue to cause chaos, but their targets aren’t widely seeking justice. Instead, they’re being encouraged to adopt those same tools.

The French AI lab claims its latest release matches or outperforms even the best models from DeepSeek and Z.ai in coding and cybersecurity.