Most mobile calls around the world are made over the Global System for Mobile Communications standard; in the US, GSM underpins any call made over AT&T or T-Mobile’s network. But at the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas on Saturday, researchers from the BlackBerry are presenting an attack that can intercept GSM calls as they’re […]
Last winter, a hacker who goes by the handle Jmaxxz was looking for a Christmas present for his girlfriend. She’d recently flown back from a work trip and complained that her fingers had been painfully cold on her drive home from the airport, thanks to below-freezing winter weather and a circulatory system condition known as […]
Hacker summer camp is here again! You know what that means: WIRED is back in Las Vegas for the annual Black Hat and Defcon security conferences, where we’re digging into the latest and greatest hacks on display. First, let’s talk about iPhones. A researcher found it’s possible to break into one just by sending a […]
For the last two years, hackers have come to the Voting Village at the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas to tear down voting machines and analyze them for vulnerabilities. But this year’s Village features a fancy new target: a prototype secure voting machine created through a $10 million project at the Defense Advanced Research […]
Automatic license plate reader cameras are controversial enough when law enforcement deploys them, given that they can create a panopticon of transit throughout a city. Now one hacker has found a way to put a sample of that power—for safety, he says, and for surveillance—into the hands of anyone with a Tesla and a few […]
A few short decades ago, the archetypal hacker was a bored teenager breaking into his school’s network to change grades, à la Ferris Bueller. So today, when cybersecurity has become the domain of state-sponsored spy agencies and multibillion-dollar companies, it may be refreshing to know that the high school hacker lives on—as do the glaring […]
The first time I called into an elevator, I picked up my iPhone and dialed the number—labeled on my list as the Crown Plaza Hotel in Chicago—and immediately heard two beeps, then a recording of a woman’s voice, who told me to press one to talk. When I did, I was suddenly in aural space […]
Sue Gordon was a name Americans were never supposed to know—the exemplar par excellence of the legion of career, nonpartisan officials who devote a lifetime to anonymous government service. A former Duke basketball player, Gordon dedicated her life to US intelligence. She rose through the ranks as part of the first generation of women to […]
Safecrackers of the past put a stethoscope to a safe’s panel while turning its dial, listening for the telltale murmurs of the interlocking components inside. It turns out that modern safecracking, despite all its electronic upgrades, isn’t always so different. But now those involuntary murmurs are electric, and the combination they betray takes the form […]
Apple Pay has a slew of protective features that make it a secure method of online credit card transactions. And since 2016, third-party merchants and services have been able to embed Apple Pay into their websites and offer it as a payment option. But at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, […]