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Kim Zetter

@kimzetter.bsky.social
20K followers 708 following 925 posts

Journalist - cyber/natn'l security. Speaker. Georgetown adjunct prof. Author - COUNTDOWN TO ZERO DAY: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon Signal: KimZ.42 www.zetter-zeroday.com

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Reposted by Kim Zetter
ProPublica @propublica.org · 06/10/2026
4/ Fernando Vasquez, an 18-year-old citizen, was on break from work when agents chased and handcuffed him, then put him in their truck. After realizing their mistake, the agents left the teen alone in the woods, with no way to get home. Then they threw his ID out of the truck.
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Exclusive: Israeli spyware maker Paragon positions itself as more responsible than competitor NSO Group. But company's new US CEO says in candid interview that while they will cut off customers who misuse their spyware they have no ability to detect or investigate customer misuse, nor want ability
wired.com
The Secrets of a US Spyware King
In an exclusive interview with WIRED, Paragon Solutions CEO Andrew Boyd reveals the limits of the company’s promise to keep bad actors from abusing its powerful espionage tool.
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Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai @lorenzofb.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
NEW: We spoke to hacking law experts to learn if OpenAI and Anthropic could be prosecuted for their AI agents’ hacks against four companies. We are in “uncharted territory,” as one lawyer put it. But another attorney said there is a potential avenue to hold the two AI giants liable for negligence.
techcrunch.com
Who's legally to blame for Anthropic and OpenAI's autonomous AI hacks? It's complicated | TechCrunch
OpenAI and Anthropic admitted that their unreleased AI models escaped their sandboxes and hacked several companies in unprecedented cyberattacks. Who is legally to blame? Should prosecutors charge the...
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 31/07/2026
Trump: "We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota."
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Exclusive: Guess who designed this year's Defcon badges? None other than famed hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang. The badges feature a new, secure and open-source chip Huang created, which doubles as a security token after the con. Hardware hackers will love the specs bsky.app/profile/defc...
wired.com
The New Defcon Badges Pack a Unique Open Source Chip That Doubles as a Security Key
Created by legendary hardware hacker Andrew “bunnie” Huang, the badges for this year’s famed security conference aim to push the boundaries of security and transparency.
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DEF CON @defcon.defcon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2026
Friendly #DEFCON34 reminder: Meta-style glasses with recording capabilities are prohibited at DEF CON. Surreptitious filming is an invasion of privacy, and will be treated as a CoC violation. There is no exception for recording glasses with prescription lenses […] [Original post on defcon.social]
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andy jabbour @andyjabbour.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
👀 one of my fav #CyberSecurity reporters on one of my fav #cybercrime warriors: 'Tracking Peter Stokes and The Com: @nixonnixoff.bsky.social and Her Work Unmasking Cybercriminals.' I feel like the term of FAFO was made for cybercriminals who want to test Nixon. www.zetter-zeroday.com/tracking-pet...
zetter-zeroday.com
Tracking Peter Stokes and The Com: Allison Nixon and Her Work Unmasking Cybercriminals
Any time a member of The Com gets arrested, there’s a good chance Allison Nixon played a role in it. Nixon is chief research officer at the cyber investigations firm Unit221B, named after the apartmen...
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Reposted by Kim Zetter
ProPublica @propublica.org · 15/07/2026
NEW: Months after FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty cast a decisive vote approving Paramount’s historic $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, she and a guest accepted Kennedy Center gala tickets from the company worth more than $12,000.
propublica.org
FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals
Accepting tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala compromised the commissioners’ impartiality, ethics experts told ProPublica. FCC Chair Brendan Carr has been gifted at least $63,000 worth of ticket...
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
The arrest last week of an Iranian hacker in Montenegro spotlights how Iran has moved into economic espionage and IP theft in recent years, emulating China. www.zetter-zeroday.com/arrest-of-ir...
zetter-zeroday.com
Arrest of Iranian Hacker Spotlights Iran’s Movement into Economic Espionage and IP Theft
A lot has been written in the last decade about China’s economic espionage through its theft of intellectual property. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray once referred to these thefts as “one of the...
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
"Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Congress would oversee Mr. Pulte’s office to ensure 'they report on legitimate foreign threats to elections, not Donald Trump’s imaginary ones.'" www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/u...
nytimes.com
Bill Pulte Picks G.O.P. Election Operative for Spy Agency Job
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Peter Baker @peterbakernyt.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Supreme Court rejects Trump's bid to overturn a $5 million civil judgment against him after a jury found in 2023 that he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll. @abbievansickle.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/u...
nytimes.com
Supreme Court Lets $5 Million Sex Abuse Verdict Against Trump Stand
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Medical privacy is not only a personal right, but also a legal right. But what about when you're a politician and your job and your constituents depend on you showing up to do the job - or at least being transparent about why you can't?
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
I've received about 20 variations of this email in the last two months. Each of them is written by AI, and the aim always is to push a service on authors to promote their books - for a price, of course. They never mention this directly, however. I finally responded to one of the emails
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Catching up with email and social media after two weeks in Europe. There must be a word (maybe a really long German one) for that feeling you have when you emerge from that blissful fog of ignorance that comes from being (mostly) disconnected and get hit with reality again.
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
In 2007, Bezos, already a multibillionaire at the time, did not pay anything in federal income taxes. He also did not pay a penny in federal taxes in 2011, due to claimed business losses. He currently pays just 1.1 percent of his income in federal taxes.
propublica.org
The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax
ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, ev...
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Sir, another graduation ceremony in which the students booed AI has dropped. "College graduates were pissed after their school used AI to announce graduates’ names and missed hundreds of names" (via @/FearedBuck on Twitter)
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Jonathan Lemire @jonlemire.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
“But as Trump turns 80 next month, his recent behavior should prompt even more questions than usual about his stability, judgment, and mental sharpness” www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
theatlantic.com
A Different Kind of Fading President
Joe Biden became quieter, while Donald Trump grows even louder.
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Martijn Grooten @martijngrooten.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
These days, everyone uses AI to make up numbers left, right and center. Two decades ago, you needed a foreign government to do that for you.
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Reposted by Kim Zetter
evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Malware archeology never stops digging up new and interesting artifacts.
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earth pod @earthpod.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
quantum computing is to encryption algorithms as AI is to nation-state obfuscated malware
Last month, Guerrero-Saade and Vitaly Kamluk, an independent security researcher working on behalf of SentinelOne, announced that in 2019, Guerrero-Saade had found the Fast16 sample, and after years of trying but failing to decipher the code, he and Kamluk used AI to finally determine what it was designed to do. The code, they said, was subverting software applications used for performing high-precision mathematical calculations, and concluded that it was likely targeting software used for conducting simulated tests of physical properties that required high precision.
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Exclusive: Fast16 malware has raised questions about what it was designed to do. Researchers at Symantec finally confirm it was subverting software used to simulate nuclear weapons explosions. Nuclear experts also tell me Iran was the likely target and explain how it impacted nuclear weapons tests
zetter-zeroday.com
Experts Confirm the Fast16 Malware Was Sabotaging Nuclear Weapons Tests, Likely in Iran
Fast16 didn't predate Stuxnet but was contemporaneous with it. It also wasn't aimed at altering nuclear weapons but was simply feeding false data to engineers about the nuclear detonation tests they w...
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Reposted by Kim Zetter
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai @lorenzofb.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
NEW: Google is rolling out a new feature for Android called Intrusion Logging, designed specifically to help researchers investigate attacks done with spyware and forensic tools. Amnesty says this is “a fundamental shift in the amount and quality of forensic data available on Android devices.”
techcrunch.com
Google launches new Android security feature to help uncover spyware attacks | TechCrunch
Intrusion Logging is a new part of Android’s Advanced Protection Mode, which aims to help protect human rights activists, journalists, and dissidents from government spyware attack and law enforcement...
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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
And it wouldn't even lead to lower prices at the pump! Here's the legendary @pkrugman.bsky.social writing in 2000.
Now suppose that we were to cut gasoline taxes. If the price of gas at the pump were to fall, motorists would buy more gas. But there isn't any more gas, so the price at the pump, inclusive of the lowered tax, would quickly be bid right back up to the pre-tax-cut level. And that means that any cut in taxes would show up not in a lower price at the pump, but in a higher price paid to distributors. In other words, the benefits of the tax cut would flow not to consumers but to other parties, mainly the domestic oil refining industry. (As the textbooks will tell you, reducing the tax rate on an inelastically supplied good benefits the sellers, not the buyers.)
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Hm. Academics need to publish their work and get it distributed. But Elsevier, a giant in academic publishing, *requires* academics to sign over copyright to their papers to publish them. Now Elsevier is suing AI firms to get big payoff for work that Elsevier should never get to own in first place
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Museum of Political Corruption @corruptmuseum.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐈𝐄 𝐊 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 On winning the Museum of Political Corruption's 2026 Nellie Bly Award AND a Pulitzer! Well-deserved honors for your impactful and courageous reporting. @jkbjournalist.bsky.social #NellieBlyAward2026 #MuseumofPoliticalCorruption
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Trenchant exec, Peter Williams, who stole zero-day exploits from his employer and sold them to a Russian buyer (known to sell exploits to the Russian government) has been ordered to pay $10 million in restitution to his former employer www.zetter-zeroday.com/trenchant-ex...
zetter-zeroday.com
Trenchant Exec Who Sold Zero Days to Russian Buyer Ordered to Pay $10 Million in Restitution to Former Employers
Peter Joseph Williams, the former L3 Trenchant executive recently convicted of stealing zero-day exploits from his employer and selling them to a Russian broker, has been ordered to pay $10 million to...
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Jennifer Graham @jennrgraham.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Every single sentence of this article is more insane than the last, but the standout was this: "When I reached a former longtime senior FBI official to ask whether he’d ever seen personally branded liquor bottles distributed by a previous FBI director, he burst out laughing."
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Shut down by US regulators in 2022, Polymarket moved to Panama. Except ...
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
🎉🏆 Such awesome news. Even more awesome because @yaelwrites.com is a freelancer who brought the story to AP and worked with them on the reporting for three years.
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🎃 🧙🏻‍♀️Yell 👻 Growler💀🎃 @yaelwrites.com · 04/05/2026
I am honored to share the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Best International Reporting with Dake Kang, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Garance Burke for our reporting revealing how Silicon Valley largely designed and built China's surveillance state and enabled human rights abuses.
The 2026 Pulitzer Prize Announcement
International Reporting
Winner: Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal of the Associated Press and Yael Grauer, contributor.

US government allowed and even helped US firms sell tech used for surveillance in China, AP finds.
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
"Three providers account for 63 percent of the market share of data centers: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. The United Kingdom already has deemed data centers as a standalone critical infrastructure sector."
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Patrick Howell O’Neill @patrickhowelloneill.com · 01/05/2026
NEW: A Russian hacker who broke into and damaged critical oil and gas infrastructure facilities in the US, Ukraine and other countries was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges that carry up to 27 years in prison. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Russian Charged in Oil and Gas Facility Hacks Pleads Guilty
A Russian hacker who helped to breach critical oil and gas facilities in the US, Ukraine and other countries pleaded guilty to charges that carry as many as 27 years in prison.
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🎃 🧙🏻‍♀️Yell 👻 Growler💀🎃 @yaelwrites.com · 28/04/2026
What happens when amateur hackers have the tools to iterate through exploits at machine speed? I wrote about the neu script kiddies, what happens after Mythos, and how companies can prepare. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia.... with insight from @k8em0.bsky.social Dan Guido, Joshua Saxe, & Tim Becker.
theverge.com
Attack of the killer script kiddies
“It’s now or never. There’s a tidal wave coming.”
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Journalist covering cybersecurity/national security. Wrote book on Stuxnet - Countdown to Zero Day. Longtime WIRED staffer now writing independently: WIRED, NY Times, Politico, Washington Post, Guardian and zetter-zeroday.com Send tips: Signal: KimZ.42 Keybase: kimzet Email: kzetter@protonmail.com
zetter-zeroday.com
ZERO DAY
Hackers, spies and the intersection between cybersecurity and national security
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Jennifer Granick @granick.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
I read all the amicus briefs in United States v. Chatrie, the Supreme Court geofence case, so you don’t have to. An expert agrees this is the best one: open.substack.com/pub/granick/...
open.substack.com
Technologists' Take Account of Geofence Searches
The best brief of the twenty-seven filed in the United States v. Chatrie Supreme Court case
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Some snickered when TMZ announced they were sending a team to DC to cover politics. But sometimes you need people asking the questions that establishment reporters won't ask.
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Mystery around a cyberattack against Venezuela's state-run oil company last December deepens with the discovery this week of a "highly destructive" wiper that may have been used in the attack. Previous reports indicated the December attack involved ransomware, but the wiper rewrites that narrative
zetter-zeroday.com
Mystery Around Venezuelan Cyberattack Deepens, with New Discovery of "Highly Destructive" Wiper
The mystery around a cyberattack that struck Venezuela's state-owned oil company in December is growing, following an announcement by researchers this week that they had discovered a "highly destructi...
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23/04/2026
RFK Jr: "A Democratic senator claimed it's mathematically impossible to have a drug drop by 600%. I said, 'Well, if the drug was $100 and it raises to $600, that would be a 600% rise. If it drops from $600 to $100, that's a 600% savings.'" Trump: "Right"
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21/04/2026
WARREN: That's not my question. Are you refusing to tell us if you have investments in vehicles set up by Jeffrey Epstein? KEVIN WARSH: Those assets will be sold if I'm confirmed
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
And one of my five is out! Trump continues his habit of forcing out only his female Cabinet secretaries. bsky.app/profile/notu...
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
"An underrated 21st century skill is knowing what level of digital friendship you should have with somebody. Getting that Instagram request and being able to say, 'no, LinkedIn mutuals is right for us.'"
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Washington can only pay attention to a scandal or two at a time, which means in the Trump age there are all sorts of should-be-big-deal scandals that don’t get the oxygen or media focus that they should. I'll bet you've missed at least three of these: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/five-trump...
doomsdayscenario.co
Five Trump Scandals You’ve Probably Missed
Swirling scandals—from the Pentagon to DHS to the IRS to the Labor Department—that represent basic betrayals of public office, trust, and confidence-in-leadership that should be the table stakes of go...
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Interesting backstory on how Anthropic discovered the power of Mythos to find vulnerabilities and decided, therefore, to control its release www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
How Anthropic Learned Mythos Was Too Dangerous for the Wild
The AI company’s own experts warned Mythos could hack the systems beneath most modern computing. Banks and government agencies are racing to gauge the threat.
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Noah Shachtman @noahshachtman.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Jim Dolan is a full-blown media and tech oligarch these days -- from his private deep state to his MAGA ties. But Dolan's connections to Trump go back further than most; he got married in Mar-a-Lago in 2002. It's his security forces that are now spying on so many New Yorkers.
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 17/04/2026
Drilling-and-draining thievery appears to be increasingly common as the war with Iran has pushed gasoline prices to their highest level in four years, and as older — and less-destructive — methods of stealing fuel have gotten harder to pull off.
washingtonpost.com
As fuel prices rise, a new technique of gas theft is spreading
With simple tools, thieves are “drilling and draining” fuel from vehicles, leaving drivers with costly repair bills.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
This is the massive turnout for last night’s “anti regime” concert in Heroes Square, Budapest, ahead of tomorrow’s crucial Hungarian elections. Tens of thousands chanted “Russians go home”. #Orban
Aerial view of enormous crowd. Haven’t managed to source picture credit. Will post when I do
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Zack Whittaker @zackwhittaker.com · 10/04/2026
New: France said it plans to move its government computers currently running Windows to the open-source software Linux to further reduce its reliance on U.S. tech. Comes at a time of growing instability and unpredictability on the part of the Trump administration and weaponization of sanctions, etc.
techcrunch.com
France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech | TechCrunch
France's move to ditch Windows for Linux is its latest effort to reduce its reliance on American tech giants.
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Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
“when you change the internet settings in a router like they did, it propagates to all the devices in your house. All those devices now, once they’re connected to that Wi-Fi, are [going to] the malicious IP addresses [the GRU is] then routing their traffic through” cyberscoop.com/fbi-operatio...
cyberscoop.com
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