From Hacks to Bioweapons, Claude Misuse Is Now Everywhere
Plus: The US disrupts the internet’s biggest black market, a Conti ransomware hacker gets prison time, Meta fails to stop AI-generated videos of child abuse.
Editor’s note: After more than a decade, this is the last WIRED Security News This Week. “The roundup,” as we call it internally, started as a way to ensure that our readers knew about the latest key cybersecurity and privacy news even if we didn’t write about it ourselves. It was a simple way to highlight our own work and the wealth of other great journalism and research published in this realm every week.
Over the years, the roundup has developed a devoted following, and some editions have even become viral hits—which is honestly weird, but the cybersecurity community is great and weird, so it feels right. Rest assured that something new and exciting is coming in the roundup’s place, so stay tuned for that! For now, as always, stay safe out there.
Meta failed to catch roughly 350 AI child abuse ads , according to new research this week, including some that included images of real kids. In one case, a child depicted in an ad was a member of a European royal family. Lawmakers have said they intend to investigate, and the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office ordered the company this week to stop “allowing” AI child abuse ads.
In other Meta news, the company announced a new personal AI agent this week that can book your plane tickets or sell your car, but it emphasized heavy investment in security and privacy features , seemingly anticipating mistrust from consumers. In this vein, the company was hit with a proposed class action lawsuit this week over alleged illegal harvesting of Facebook and Instagram photos for training AI and face-recognition systems.
Clearview AI is testing a previously unreported prototype AI tool known as InquiryIQ that would help law enforcement find a target’s associates, social media accounts, and other personal information. And Apple announced a set of new “audio intelligence” features for its Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 devices this week that involve processing audio in a user’s environment. The company extensively emphasized the security and privacy protections built into the features, perhaps anticipating that they could come across as, well, creepy.
The US and Mexico have a new joint operation to detect, track, and take down drones at the border using laser tech. And there’s a new GTA V mod that lets you make (in-game) money destroying (in-game) Flock license plate recognition cameras .
