An indictment from the US Department of Justice might have solved the thriller of how disgraced cryptocurrency trade FTX lost over $400 million in crypto. The indictment, filed final week, alleges that three people used a SIM-swapping attack to steal a whole bunch of thousands and thousands in digital foreign money from an unnamed firm. The timing and the quantity stolen coincides with FTX’s theft. Meanwhile, in a letter obtained by WIRED this week, seven lawmakers have demanded the DOJ stop funding biased and inaccurate predictive policing tools till the company has a manner to make sure legislation enforcement gained’t use them in a manner that has a “discriminatory impact.”

In Florida, prosecutors say a 17-year-old named Alan Winston Filion is answerable for a whole bunch of swatting assaults across the United States. The information of his arrest was first reported by WIRED days earlier than legislation enforcement made it public. It was the end result of a multi-agency manhunt to piece collectively a path of digital breadcrumbs left by the teenager. In Ukraine, unmanned aerial autos have been highly effective instruments because the Russian invasion started in February 2022. But because the conflict rages on, one other sort of unmanned robotic has more and more appeared on the front-lines: the unmanned ground vehicle, or UGV.

For months legal professionals affiliated with an India primarily based hacker-for-hire agency referred to as Appin Technology have used authorized threats to censor reporting in regards to the firm’s alleged cyber mercenary previous. The EFF, Techdirt, MuckRock, and DDoSecrets are now pushing back, publicly sharing particulars for the primary time in regards to the agency’s efforts to take away content material from the net. It’s a harmful world on the market, so we’ve additionally received an inventory of some main patches issued in January that you can use to update your devices to keep them secure.

And there’s extra. Each week, we spotlight the information we didn’t cowl in-depth ourselves. Click on the headlines under to learn the complete tales. And keep secure on the market.

For years Western safety officers have warned about the specter of China accumulating knowledge about thousands and thousands of individuals and the nation’s hackers infiltrating delicate methods. This week, Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray mentioned hackers affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party are constantly targeting US critical infrastructure, reminiscent of water therapy crops, {the electrical} grid, and oil and gasoline pipelines. Wray’s testimony, at a House subcommittee on China, got here because the FBI additionally revealed it eliminated malware from hundreds of routers in people’s homes and offices that had been planted by the Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon.

“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities,” Wray mentioned within the public look. “Low blows against civilians are part of China’s plan.” The FBI director added that China has a much bigger hacking operation than “every other major nation combined,” and claimed that if all the FBI’s cyber-focused brokers have been assigned to work on points associated to China, they might nonetheless be outnumbered “by at least 50 to 1.”

While considerations in regards to the scale of China’s espionage and cyber operations aren’t new, the US intelligence group has been more and more vocal and frightened about crucial infrastructure being focused by Volt Typhoon and different teams. “The threat is extremely sophisticated and pervasive,” NSA officers warned in November. In May 2023, Microsoft revealed it had been tracking Volt Typhoon intrusions at communications and transportation infrastructure, amongst different crucial infrastructure, in US states and Guam.