🚨NEW🚨 Cops used an AI-generated teenager to catch pedophiles on Kik Messenger, an app notorious as a hive of predator activity.
A rare insight into how police can spin up AI teens for sting operations on social media.
But where else are cops using AI personas?
www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...
SCOOP: The iPhone mass hacking toolkit used by Russian spies was developed at U.S. military contractor L3Harris, former employees said.
The Coruna toolkit was used against Ukrainians and by Chinese cybercriminals, according to Google. But the toolkit was initially developed for Western governments.
honestly it's on me for not thinking that this could drop on a random friday afternoon after months of anticipation -- my b
www.whitehouse.gov/articles/202...
OpenAI is starting to roll out Codex Security today, entering the growing market of frontier AI labs offering code security agents.
The last time an AI co. introduced a similar offering, the news rattled share prices for major cyber companies for several days.
www.axios.com/2026/03/06/o...
Gen. Nakasone, former head of the NSA & an OpenAI board member, called out the Pentagon's move to designate Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" at a conference in Sausalito last night.
"This is not a good space for our nation."
more @axios.com:
www.axios.com/2026/03/03/n...
Scoop: CISA CIO Bob Costello is being pushed out, per three people familiar with the matter, ending a standoff between Costello and CISA's beleaguered acting director, who tried and failed to get him reassigned last month.
Two sources said Costello is being reassigned to FEMA.
New w @janetimm.bsky.social: In the feds' first call with states since gutting CISA's election programs, they promised no ICE at polling places, but weirdly refused to reaffirm states run elections, per people on the call.
the future looks more like "war games" than "terminator," ex. No. 323389
www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
I spent the last few weeks asking former senior gov't officials & leading cyber experts the same question: What will the major AI-powered cyberattack look like?
Attacks on utilities. Agents going rogue. Humans overly trusting AI systems. It's all on the table: www.axios.com/2026/02/24/c...
i had a lot of feelings about the (sorry not sorry, overreaction!) of the markets on cyber stocks after Anthropic's code security tool release!
maybe i'm wrong in the long term, but idk, a lot of folks seem to share my POV: www.axios.com/2026/02/23/c...
NEW –> DEF CON has banned Vincenzo Iozzo, Joichi Ito and Pablos Holman after DOJ files released in January revealed their roles in efforts to secure Jeffrey Epstein’s access to the popular hacker conference:
www.nextgov.com/people/2026/...
NEW: ICE has a plan to lease offices across the US as part of a secret, months-long expansion campaign.
Today, @wired.com is publishing dozens of those locations. Many are near schools, medical offices, and places of worship.
Vital work from @leahfeiger.bsky.social that I'm proud to publish.
NEW: The government's nutrition website directs users to Grok.
After I asked about it, the site lost the name drop shown below, but users are still sent to Grok. This follows uproar over Grok's creation of millions of sexualized deepfakes of women and children.
www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...
Anthropic's new Opus 4.6 model has already proven it's a pro at finding zero-days.
In early testing, the model found more than 500 security flaws in open-source software. Many of those were found after traditional security tools failed.
my exclusive for @axios.com:
www.axios.com/2026/02/05/a...
a new threat actor tied to an Asian gov't (👀) has hacked at least 70 orgs across 37 countries in the last year, according to Palo Alto Networks.
victims include Brazil's Ministry of Mines & Energy, the Czech Republic's parliament and an Indonesian gov't official.
www.axios.com/2026/02/05/c...
"'If somebody said it's business as usual [with federal election security support], he's full of s—t and lying,' [Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes] said. 'That's not true.'"
cyberscoop.com/cisa-electio...
people buy into the potential productivity gains & don't like doing their own admin!
a new open-source AI agent has gone viral across tech spaces.
it requires persistent access to devices, can read & write files, and is easily misconfigured when set up.
it’s a security nightmare & we’re only at the beginning of AI agent adoption 🫠
www.axios.com/2026/01/29/m...
New, by me: Under Armour says it’s aware of data breach claims after 72M customer records were posted online.
A spox. told me a "small percentage" of customers had sensitive information compromised but wouldn't say what it considers "sensitive," nor provide an accurate figure of affected customers.
Oakland Animal Services has been absolutely slammed this month and they are over capacity. There are 4 dogs with a Monday euthanasia date right now. I’m picking one up for foster & hopefully you can too! Go grab one of these babies!
From Flock camera trackers to ICE leaks, protesters are now embracing hacktivism in their work against the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts.
my latest on @axios.com:
www.axios.com/2026/01/20/i...
The US DOJ says at least two DOGE employees accessed Social Security data that was off-limits under a court ruling and shared agency data on third-party servers (April Rubin/Axios)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
New: DOGE staff cuts gutted the Pentagon's IT office so hard it didn't have enough personnel to buy software it needed to operate theintercept.com/2026/01/19/d...
"Many of these endeavors go far beyond typical political persuasion, challenging long-established democratic norms."
wapo.st/3LWMYnX
and still (likely! blatantly!) benefits the U.S. either way!
one month after a cyberattack, Venezuela's state-owned oil company is operating via phone calls, WhatsApp messages and handwritten reports
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Daily Beast reports that a DHS whistleblower has leaked the personal details of around 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees. The data is said to include about 1,800 on-the-ground agents and 150 supervisors.
I'm looking for anyone that's work at a company that's either missed payroll -- or been late with paychecks. I want to hear what that's like and how that affected you. It's for a story I'm working on. Emily.peck@axios.com. You can also just DM me here or find me on Signal EmilyRPeck.71
update: I’m being told this is the witness list for next week—
Logan Graham, Anthropic’s frontier red team lead
Royal Hansen, Google vice president of security & privacy
Eddy Zervigon, Quantum Xchange CEO
Michael Coates, Seven Hill Ventures
