Andy Greenberg

(I will call it cyberreconnaissance from now on though just to spite you)

Just because I wrote this doesn't mean I called it cyber-anything. I restrained myself!

From Ukraine to Iran, Hacking Security Cameras Is Now Part of War’s ‘Playbook’ New research shows hundreds of attempts by apparent Iranian state hackers to hijack consumer-grade cameras, timed to missile and drone strikes. Israel, Russia, and Ukraine have also adopted this trick...

Hacking internet-connected civilian security cameras for recon has become a standard operating procedure of modern warfare. First for Russia and Ukraine, now for Israel and Iran.

Your insecure internet-of-things surveillance system is now their targeting system.

www.wired.com/story/from-u...

Some very interesting "opinions" from @patrick.risky.biz about our story on the origins of a highly sophisticated iPhone hacking toolkit found in the wild. Watch here: youtu.be/4MwR6dRixJo?...

How Vulnerable Are Computers to an 80-Year-Old Spy Technique? Congress Wants Answers A pair of US lawmakers are calling for an investigation into how easily spies can steal information based on devices’ electromagnetic and acoustic leaks—a spying trick the NSA once codenamed TEMPEST.

Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Shontel Brown are calling for an investigation into the vulnerability of modern computers to what the NSA calls TEMPEST: spy techniques that pick up devices' accidental electromagnetic/radio/acoustic emissions to learn their secrets. www.wired.com/story/how-vu...

A Possible US Government iPhone-Hacking Toolkit Is Now in the Hands of Foreign Spies and Criminals A highly sophisticated set of iPhone hijacking techniques has likely infected tens of thousands of phones or more. Clues suggest it was originally built for the US government.

A full iOS exploitation toolkit, "Coruna," has been found in the wild, hacking iPhones that visited infected websites, used by Russian spies targeting Ukrainians and thieves targeting Chinese crypto holders. And it may have been originally created for the US government. www.wired.com/story/coruna...

Incredible to see @wired.com's video team nominated for a National Magazine Award for our piece on 3D printing Luigi Mangione's gun.

1 of 4 WIRED nominations for DOGE coverage, our How to Win a Fight package, General Excellence. Proud to work in this newsroom. asme.memberclicks.net/national-mag...

@wired.com is nominated for the ASMEs!!! FOUR times!!!

I am so so proud of the whole WIRED newsroom, and just a special shout out to my politics team -- this time last year, we were barely sleeping as we unveiled a government takeover in real time. It's a real honor to have that recognized here!

The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to ev...

Just learned that @wired.com got nominated for four (!!) National Magazine Awards, including for our "How to Win a Fight" package, with a specific callout for this excellent piece by @agreenberg.bsky.social and @lhn.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/the-wi...

asme.memberclicks.net/national-mag...

An FBI ‘Asset’ Helped Run a Dark Web Site That Sold Fentanyl-Laced Drugs for Years A staffer of the Incognito dark web market was secretly controlled by the FBI—and still allegedly approved the sale of fentanyl-tainted pills, including those from a dealer linked to a confirmed death...

The FBI secretly controlled a staffer at a dark web drug market that did $100 million in sales. The informant allegedly approved the sale of drugs even after warnings they were tainted with fentanyl—including from a vendor whose pills led to a confirmed fatal overdose. www.wired.com/story/an-fbi...

An FBI ‘Asset’ Helped Run a Dark Web Site That Sold Fentanyl-Laced Drugs for Years A staffer of the Incognito dark web market was secretly controlled by the FBI—and still allegedly approved the sale of fentanyl-tainted pills, including those from a dealer linked to a confirmed death...

The FBI secretly controlled a staffer at a dark web drug market that did $100 million in sales. The informant allegedly approved the sale of drugs even after warnings they were tainted with fentanyl—including from a vendor whose pills led to a confirmed fatal overdose. www.wired.com/story/an-fbi...

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we’ve collected experts’ tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group—even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people writing to me to ask about encrypted/secure/private tools for comms, collaboration, and organizing. So @lhn.bsky.social and I talked to experts and assembled this: the Wired guide to organizing in an age of surveillance. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

Huntress Labs is hosting the whistleblower, named Mohammad “Red Bull” Muzahir, in a webinar(?) on Feb 24:

www.huntress.com/trafficking-...

His background story:

Crypto-Funded Human Trafficking Is Exploding The use of cryptocurrency in sales of human beings for prostitution and scam compounds nearly doubled in 2025, according to a conservative estimate. Many of the deals are happening in plain sight.

Crypto transactions for human trafficking—both forced laborers in scam compounds and sex trafficking—grew by at least 85% in 2025. Now measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Almost all these deals are being carried out on Chinese-language Telegram channels. www.wired.com/story/crypto...

Thank you Runa...I think there's ongoing debate though as to whether it was actually Sandworm (GRU) in this case or the FSB group known as Berserk Bear or Dragonfly.

(That group does get a mention in the book as well...they've been deeply penetrating US power grid networks for years.)

A couple fascinating things I learned reporting this:

1. Much of the plant life on the field was people in costume.
2. The finale required 9,852 theatrical pyrotechnics.
3. That was a real couple that got married during the Lady Gaga number.

So many more details here in the piece. Go read!

Reminder that the Washington Post lost 250,000 subscribers, more than most outlets will ever have, after its decision not to publish an endorsement in the last election. www.npr.org/2024/10/29/n...

That kind of cowardice, not AI or whatever, is what's "drastically reshaping" readers' expectations.

This is such a travesty, I'm sorry. You'll do great work elsewhere but infuriating this has happened to you and tragic to see WP self-immolate and lose so many of its best reporters.

thank you Nadim, but I think the best we can realistically hope for is the FIFA journalism prize

Senator Maggie Hassan has responded to our story about Bondu’s lack of security around kids’ AI toy chat transcripts by sending a letter to the company asking 10 detailed questions about its privacy practices. She calls its exposure of kids’ data “devastating.” www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cach...

Here's our 25-min video news-documentary version of the story of Red Bull, the whistleblower who leaked me the secrets of a crypto scam compound while trapped as a forced laborer inside it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOcN...

Hope you'll watch and consider the immense scale of this global crisis.

How to Film ICE Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact.

NEW: The @wired.com Security desk put together a comprehensive guide to filming ICE—with tips for reducing risk at the forefront. No paywall, but please consider subscribing to help find these kinds of resources. And stay safe out there. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

www.wired.com/v2/offers/wi...

For those who read our piece about crypto scam compound whistleblower Red Bull, I've verified that this is his real Bluesky account below.

Thank for your incredible courage and all your work to achieve justice, @mohammadmuzahir02.bsky.social.

An AI Toy Exposed 50,000 Logs of Its Chats With Kids to Anyone With a Gmail Account AI chat toy company Bondu left its web console almost entirely unprotected. Researchers who accessed it found nearly all the conversations children had had with the company's stuffed animals.

The AI-chat-enabled stuffed toy Bondu invites little kids to have intimate conversations with it, like an LLM imaginary friend. It also exposed virtually all their chats on a web interface with no security. Anyone with a Gmail account could log in and read transcripts. www.wired.com/story/an-ai-...

An AI Toy Exposed 50,000 Logs of Its Chats With Kids to Anyone With a Gmail Account AI chat toy company Bondu left its web console almost entirely unprotected. Researchers who accessed it found nearly all the conversations children had had with the company's stuffed animals.

The AI-chat-enabled stuffed toy Bondu invites little kids to have intimate conversations with it, like an LLM imaginary friend. It also exposed virtually all their chats on a web interface with no security. Anyone with a Gmail account could log in and read transcripts. www.wired.com/story/an-ai-...

A greenbergian banger sounds like some kind of jewish Roald Dahl monster but I'll take the compliment, thank you Patrick

He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive A source trapped inside an industrial-scale scamming operation contacted me, determined to expose his captors’ crimes—and then escape. This is his story.

A lot is happening right now. Hope you'll still take a moment to read WIRED's story of Red Bull's incredible work as a whistleblower, our analysis of the evidence he shared, the details of his ordeal inside a modern slavery operation, and how he finally got home. /end www.wired.com/story/he-lea...

Red Bull's leaks to me were never detected. But when he tried to escape, this story became a nightmare. He was caught by his bosses, beaten, kicked, drugged and then starved for weeks. Only when the compound had to move to evade an impending police raid would he seize an opportunity to get free.

Revealed: Leaked Chats Expose the Daily Life of a Scam Compound’s Enslaved Workforce A whistleblower trapped inside a “pig butchering” scam compound gave WIRED a vast trove of its internal materials—including 4,200 pages of messages that lay out its operations in unprecedented detail.

Red Bull later shared hours of screenrecordings as he scrolled through the compound's internal WhatsApp groups. We at WIRED converted the videos into 4,200 pages of screenshotted chats that reveal the daily operations of a scam compound at a level never seen before. www.wired.com/story/the-re...

Red Bull was determined to expose everything he could about his captors: their scamming systems, scripts, guides, org chart, photos, even videos he secretly recorded. This clip inside the office shows colored flags on teams of workers' desks, connoting whether they met their scam quotas that month.