**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is local (AV:L). Why does the CVE title indicate that this is a remote code execution?**

The word **Remote** in the title refers to the location of the attacker. This type of exploit is sometimes referred to as Arbitrary Code Execution (ACE). The attack itself is carried out locally. This means an attacker or victim needs to execute code from the local machine to exploit the vulnerability.

CVE-2025-53741: Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

No cwe for this issue in Windows Hyper-V allows an authorized attacker to disclose information over a network.

CVE-2025-53781: Azure Virtual Machines Information Disclosure Vulnerability

Gaming cheats are the bane of the video game industry—and a hot commodity. A recent study found that cheat creators are making a fortune from gamers looking to gain a quick edge.

Software that can see opponents through walls. Aimbots that can lock onto other players automatically. Tools that can boost characters’ stats to the max. The world of online game cheats is expansive—with some cheat websites advertising hacks for dozens of PC games—and it’s being driven by an underground economy that’s allegedly raking in millions every year.

Over the last two years, a group of computer scientists has been analyzing and mapping the online cheat marketplace, observing what behaviors get people banned from games, and probing the effectiveness of anti-cheat systems created by games developers. Combined, 80 cheat websites are likely making between $12.8 million and $73.2 million annually—that’s around $1.1 million to $6.1 million per month, say the academics from the University of Birmingham, in the UK.

“People can really make a lot of money from selling cheats, and companies have a lot to lose if a game is seen as full of cheaters,” says Tom Chothia, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Birmingham. Last week, along with assistant professor Marius Muench and PhD researcher Sam Collins, Chothia presented findings about the cheat economy and research on how robust anti-cheat systems are at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas.

Across the North American and European cheat-selling websites they analyzed, the researchers estimate that around 30,000 to 174,000 people may be buying cheats per month. The estimates, which were first published last year, are likely an undercount of the size of the whole cheat ecosystem, the researchers say, as they don’t include cheats purchased from forums, websites in Asia, or the amount of people using free cheats. (The figures largely tally with a previous $100 million estimate for the overall cheats economy.)

The cheating community—both those who develop and sell cheats, and those who are interested in buying and using them—sprawls across the web. As well as dedicated cheat-selling websites, there are resellers, Discord communities, forums, smaller groups that sell cheats, and widespread marketing that tries to get cheats in front of people’s eyeballs. Cheats can operate by either inserting code into the game’s internal processes or parsing what is happening onscreen and taking actions outside of the game’s mechanics—the most sophisticated can involve external hardware.

In recent years, the markets for selling cheats have become more industrialized. “They look like really professionally done online shops,” Collins says. Some cheat websites sell cheats for one-time use, but others charge recurring subscriptions, such as every month or 90 days. Subscriptions allow people to continue using the cheats’ features over time, get updates if cheats stop working, and receive support from the developers. According to the academics’ analysis, where they gathered data toward the end of 2023 and focused on software cheats, the minimum price for a cheat across the 80 websites was $6.63. Meanwhile, the most expensive price was $254.28. Many are under $100 per month, depending on the subscription type.

Some of the websites have their own customer service processes and accept payments from a number mainstream payment services, Collins explains. “The staff are quite professional,” he explains. “They’re not afraid to be rude to you if they don’t like you, but they try to be pretty professional.” Core to a cheat website’s success is whether the cheats actually work and—crucially—how long they will work for. Sites have “status” indicators, showing whether a cheat is currently thought to be working.

It’s all part of the ongoing tussle between the cheat developers and games companies, which spend money on developing anti-cheat software and trying to limit nefarious behavior in their games—sometimes including lawsuits around perceived copyright issues. “It's a legal gray area. It's not illegal to sell cheats” in most countries, Chothia says, noting that China and South Korea are among the few countries that have made it a crime to use cheat software.

Andrew Hogan, a cofounder of games threat intelligence company Intorqa, which provides data to gaming companies about the cheat ecosystem, says developers are always evolving their cheats, becoming more technical, and trying to find ways around anti-cheat systems. “Even the best cheats will be detected,” Hogan says. “They don't work forever and often don’t even work for a week. But we see cheat developers who are updating their sheets every one and a half days.”

The cheat sites can make big claims themselves. One site’s public web pages say it undertakes “consistent testing daily” to make sure its cheats are still operating, claiming that its hacks “can be used without bans for a long time.” “Several of our cheats have yet to be detected from the time of their release,” the website says. Another cheats website claims its hacks are “undetectable” and that its offerings can be customized: “Tailor the cheats to fit your specific needs and play style.”

Three cheat websites contacted by WIRED did not respond to emails asking for interviews or answer questions.

While cheats and anti-cheats are getting more sophisticated in most cases, Hogan says there has recently been a “resurgence” in an older cheat method called pixelbots—but now they’ve been rebranded as AI-aimbots. The bots, which are an external kind of cheat, read what is happening on the screen and aim for the cheating player. Only now they’ve been improved by developers using computer vision. “They're much easier and quicker for developers to create using machine learning and AI and object detection programs,” Hogan says, noting that there has been a surge of their use in recent months.

Over time, the enduring popularity of cheats and the money involved has also, inevitably, brought with it the attention of cybercriminals and scammers. In recent years, thousands of government and university websites around the world have been hacked to push Roblox and Fortnite “offers,” that are actually used to push malware and obtain personal information. Kids trying to cheat in Gorilla Tag, an ape-based chase game, have been found installing a dubious VPN that could hijack their internet traffic. The researchers do say that in their analysis of 80 cheat-selling websites they didn’t find any direct evidence of scams or malware, most likely because they are trying to make money and build strong reputations.

As the cheat and anti-cheat development battle has become more sophisticated, both sides have moved into the kernel, the core of a computer’s operating system. Deploying kernel drivers, at the deepest level of the OS, where they have high levels of access, creates the risks of everything from system level crashes to potential privacy and security vulnerabilities—giving anyone virtually unfettered control over your PC is never a good idea. For an example of the issues that kernel access can cause, Crowdstrike’s botched update last year that crashed millions of computers around the world was possible because its software had kernel access. Microsoft announced it would move antivirus products and endpoint detection and response (EDR) out of the kernel in the future.

In April, Elise Murphy, head of game security at Electronic Arts, wrote in a blog post that the company’s Jevelin anti-cheat system has blocked 33 million attempts at cheating since the software launched in 2022. “The kernel is the deepest part of the operating system, and if cheats operate from there while the anti-cheat does not, they can hide everything they are doing with no chance for us to detect or prevent any of it,” Murphy wrote.

According to the University of Birmingham researchers, this kernel-level access makes anti-cheat systems incredibly robust when it comes to actually defending against cyberattacks as well. “One of our findings is that your laptop’s probably never as safe as when you are playing Fortnite; anti-cheat protection will actually keep you safe from a whole range of malware, which normal antivirus will miss,” Chothia says.

Inside the Multimillion-Dollar Gray Market for Video Game Cheats

In a conversation with Dark Reading's Terry Sweeney, Dr. Lisa Jarman from McLaren Racing says cutting-edge innovation must coexist with rigorous security protocols.

How Maclaren Racing Gets From the Browser to the Track

A Nigerian man has been extradited from France to face hacking, identity theft, and fraud charges in the…

A Nigerian man has been extradited from France to face hacking, identity theft, and fraud charges in the US. He and his co-conspirators allegedly used spearphishing to steal customer data, filing fraudulent tax returns and disaster relief claims worth millions of dollars.

In a much-awaited legal move, Nigerian man Chukwuemeka Victor Amachukwu, a/k/a “Chukwuemeka Victor Eletuo” and “So Kwan Leung,” was recently extradited from France to the United States to face charges related to hacking, fraud, and identity theft.

The extradition, announced by the FBI and the Department of Justice, marks the culmination of extensive teamwork between US and French law enforcement agencies and is a major step in the ongoing case.

According to statements from US Attorney Jay Clayton and FBI Assistant Director Christopher G. Raia, Amachukwu is a key figure in a scheme that has allegedly stolen millions of dollars. The charges against him and his co-conspirators include a sophisticated plan to hack into tax businesses across the US, including locations in New York and Texas.

The alleged fraud began around 2019, when Amachukwu and his partners, including a person named Kinglsey Uchelue Utulu, used deceptive emails to gain access to the computer systems of tax preparation businesses. These types of emails, known as spearphishing, are highly targeted messages designed to trick specific individuals into revealing sensitive information or granting system access. Once inside, the group stole personal and tax information from thousands of customers.

They then used this stolen data to file fraudulent tax returns with the IRS and state tax authorities, seeking approximately $8.4 million and successfully obtaining around $2.5 million. The scheme didn’t stop there. The group also reportedly used the stolen identities to file fake claims with the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, securing an additional $819,000 in fraudulent payouts. This program is designed to provide financial relief to businesses affected by disasters.

In a separate scheme, Amachukwu is also accused of running a fake investment program. He allegedly promised victims valuable standby letters of credit that didn’t actually exist, and instead, “pocketed millions of dollars of his victims’ money,” according to US Attorney Clayton.

Amachukwu, 39, faces several serious charges, including conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, multiple counts of wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft (PDF). If convicted, these charges could lead to a lengthy prison sentence. He was presented before US Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger, with the case now assigned to US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe.

The FBI praised the work of its international partners, including the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the French National Gendarmerie, for their help in the arrest and extradition. As is customary, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Nigerian man extradited from France to US over hacking and fraud allegations

Talos reported 5 vulnerabilities to Broadcom and Dell affecting both the ControlVault3 Firmware and its associated Windows APIs that we are calling “ReVault”.

ReVault! When your SoC turns against you… deep dive edition

Plus: Instagram sparks a privacy backlash over its new map feature, hackers steal data from Google's customer support system, and the true scope of the Columbia University hack comes into focus.

This is the week of Black Hat and Defcon, which means a flood of news coming out of the Las Vegas security conferences. As you might expect, artificial intelligence was one popular topic—specifically, using AI chatbots to cause mischief.

One team of researchers, from Tel Aviv University, created a clever attack that allowed them to take over a target’s smart home devices using a “poisoned” Google Calendar invite. It’s the first known attack method that used AI to impact physical devices.

Another researcher used a poisoned document that included a malicious prompt to trick ChatGPT into leaking a user’s private information when it’s connected to a Google Drive.

In non-AI news, an end-to-end encryption algorithm recommended for radio communications used by police and military around the world can be easily cracked, according to new research. The researchers warn that weak implementations of the encryption algorithm could allow eavesdroppers to listen in—or even transmit their own messages.

Speaking of weaknesses, a security researcher found that misconfigured APIs in some streaming platforms used for company meetings and sports livestreams can allow someone to watch the streams without logging in. And a teen hacker discovered that an internet-connected smoke and vape detector in his high school’s bathroom contained microphones—and can be exploited for secret spying.

A leaked trove of data has exposed how teams of suspected North Korean IT scam workers operate, from their meticulous record keeping to the after-work activities—and their near-constant surveillance by people running the schemes.

Finally, in the last of our Black Hat- and Defcon-related news (so far), a pair of security researchers discovered a backdoor in an electronic lock used in at least eight brands of safes, and created a way to open the locks in seconds. They also found another vulnerability that allows them to figure out a safe’s unlock code.

We also took a deep dive into the US military’s slot machine program, spoke with experts who say it’s inevitable that AI will become part of nuclear weapons systems, and revealed a string of break-ins of National Guard armories in Tennessee that experts say is part of a disturbing trend.

And that’s not all. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in-depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

**Hack of US Court System Exposed Sealed Records, FBI Says**

A previously unreported cyberattack breached the federal judiciary’s electronic case filing system, potentially exposing the identities of confidential informants and compromising sealed court records across multiple US states, Politico reports. The breach was discovered around July 4 and affects the CM/ECF—or “case management/electronic case files”—system used by courts to manage sensitive documents.

Sources told Politico the hack may have impacted criminal dockets, arrest warrants, and sealed indictments, raising concerns that cooperating witnesses could be at risk. The actor behind the intrusion has not been exposed. The Administrative Office of the US Courts and FBI declined to provide Politico with a comment.

In response to recent cyberattacks, the federal judiciary said its been in the process of implementing new safeguards to address the judiciary’s ongoing exposure to “constant and sophisticated” cyber threats.

The incident highlights longstanding warnings that the judiciary’s systems are outdated and vulnerable. A top federal judge told Congress in June that CM/ECF and PACER face “unrelenting security threats” and need urgent replacement.

**Instagram’s New Map Feature Triggers Privacy Backlash**

Instagram’s latest feature—a searchable map showing user-posted content tagged to specific locations—has sparked a wave of privacy concerns, CNBC reports. Rolled out this week, the feature lets users explore photos and videos by browsing a visual map interface.

But users quickly raised alarms about the potential for stalking, harassment, and data misuse, especially for influencers and others posting real-time content from identifiable locations. “Instagram randomly updating their app to include a maps feature without actually alerting people is so incredibly dangerous to anyone who has a restraining order and actively making sure their abuser can’t stalk their location online,” one viral post warned.

Instagram said the feature only shows content from public accounts and reiterated that users can turn off location tagging. Still, the backlash echoes broader concerns about how tech platforms rapidly aggregate and expose personal data in ways that outpace users’ expectations and consent.

**Hackers Breached Google’s Salesforce Database, Stole Customer Data**

Hackers stole data from Google’s customer support system in a breach linked to a compromised Salesforce account, TechCrunch reports. The intrusion, disclosed Wednesday, affected an undisclosed number of Google customers and involved unauthorized access to data such as contact details and “related notes for small and medium-sized businesses.”

The attackers reportedly targeted the data through Salesforce cloud systems. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group pinned the attack on ShinyHunters, a hacking group known for targeting large companies’ cloud-based databases, including Salesforce systems.

The breach affecting Google follows similar attacks on Cisco, Qantas, and Pandora, where attackers used voice phishing to trick employees into granting access. Google says the group may be preparing a leak site to extort victims and is linked to other cybercriminal collectives like The Com, which has a history of hacking and extortion.

**Columbia University Hack Exposed Data of 870,000 People**

A cyberattack on Columbia University compromised the personal information of nearly 870,000 individuals, including students, applicants, and possibly staff, Bloomberg reports. The stolen data includes contact information, academic records, financial aid details, and some health and insurance information, according to draft letters, intended for victims, obtained by the news outlet.

The breach, which dates back to mid-May, was only publicly acknowledged after Columbia filed reports with state attorneys general in California and Maine. A university official previously claimed the perpetrator was politically motivated. The school claims it has implemented new safeguards and continues to notify affected individuals.

The incident preceded a campus-wide IT outage in June. The school reportedly suspected a potential cyberattack at the time.

The US Court Records System Has Been Hacked

Security researchers found two techniques to crack at least eight brands of electronic safes—used to secure everything from guns to narcotics—that are sold with Securam Prologic locks.

About two years ago, security researchers James Rowley and Mark Omo got curious about a scandal in the world of electronic safes: Liberty Safe, which markets itself as “America’s #1 heavy-duty home and gun safe manufacturer,” had apparently given the FBI a code that allowed agents to open a criminal suspect's safe in response to a warrant related to the January 6, 2021, invasion of the US Capitol building.

Politics aside, Rowley and Omo were taken aback to read that it was so easy for law enforcement to penetrate a locked metal box—not even an internet-connected device—that no one but the owner ought to have the code to open. “How is it possible that there's this physical security product, and somebody else has the keys to the kingdom?” Omo asks.

So they decided to try to figure out how that backdoor worked. In the process, they'd find something far bigger: another form of backdoor intended to let authorized locksmiths open not just Liberty Safe devices, but the high-security Securam Prologic locks used in many of Liberty’s safes and those of at least seven other brands. More alarmingly, they discovered a way for a hacker to exploit that backdoor—intended to be accessible only with the manufacturer's help—to open a safe on their own in seconds. In the midst of their research, they also found _another_ security vulnerability in many newer versions of Securam's locks that would allow a digital safecracker to insert a tool into a hidden port in the lock and instantly obtain a safe’s unlock code.

Security researchers James Rowley and Mark Omo.Photograph: Ronda Churchill

At the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas today, Omo and Rowley made their findings public for the first time, demonstrating onstage their two distinct methods for opening electronic safes sold with Securam ProLogic locks, which are used to protect everything from personal firearms to cash in retail stores to narcotics in pharmacies.

While both their techniques represent glaring security vulnerabilities, Omo says it's the one that exploits a feature intended as a legitimate unlock method for locksmiths that's the more widespread and dangerous. “This attack is something where, if you had a safe with this kind of lock, I could literally pull up the code right now with no specialized hardware, nothing,” Omo says. “All of a sudden, based on our testing, it seems like people can get into almost any Securam Prologic lock in the world.”

Omo and Rowley demonstrate both their safecracking methods in the two videos below, which show them performing the techniques on their own custom-made safe with a standard, unaltered Securam ProLogic lock:

**Security Update? No, Buy a New Lock**

Omo and Rowley say they informed Securam about both their safe-opening techniques in spring of last year, but have until now kept their existence secret because of legal threats from the company. “We will refer this matter to our counsel for trade libel if you choose the route of public announcement or disclosure,” a Securam representative wrote to the two researchers ahead of last year's Defcon, where they first planned to present their research.

Only after obtaining pro bono legal representation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Coders’ Rights Project did the pair decide to follow through with their plan to speak about Securam's vulnerabilities at Defcon. Omo and Rowley say they're even now being careful not to disclose enough technical detail to help others replicate their techniques, while still trying to offer a warning to safe owners about two different vulnerabilities that exist in many of their devices.

When WIRED reached out to Securam for comment, the company’s CEO, Chunlei Zhou, responded in a statement. “The specific ‘vulnerabilities’ alleged by Omo and Rowley are already well known to industry professionals and in fact, also affect other safe lock providers that use similar chips,” Zhou writes. “Delivering any attack based on these vulnerabilities does require specialized knowledge, skills, and equipment, and we have no record of any customer that has ever had even a single safe lock defeated through a use of this attack.”

Zhou’s statement goes on to point to other ways safes’ locks can be opened from drilling and cutting to the use of a locksmith device called a Little Black Box that exploits vulnerabilities in some brands of electronic safe locks.

Omo and Rowley respond that the vulnerabilities they found were not previously known to the public; one of the two does not require _any_ special equipment, despite Zhou’s claim; and none of the other techniques Zhou mentions represents as serious a security flaw as their findings about the Securam ProLogic locks. The brute-force safecracking methods Zhou points to, like cutting and drilling are far slower and less stealthy—or, like the Little Black Box, are available only to locksmiths and haven’t been publicly shown to be exploitable by unauthorized hackers.

Zhou added in his statement that Securam will be fixing the vulnerabilities Omo and Rowley found in future models of the ProLogic lock. “Customer security is our priority and we have begun the process of creating next-generation products to thwart these potential attacks,” he writes. “We expect to have new locks on the market by the end of the year.”

Photograph: Ronda Churchill

In a followup call, Securam director of sales Jeremy Brookes confirmed that Securam has no plan to fix the vulnerability in locks already in use on customers’ safes, but suggests safe owners who are concerned buy a new lock and replace the one on their safe. “We’re not going to be offering a firmware package that upgrades it,” Brookes says. “We’re going to offer them a new product.”

Brookes adds that he believes Omo and Rowley are “singling out” Securam with the intention of “discrediting” the company.

Omo responds that’s not at all their intent. “We’re trying to make the public aware of the vulnerabilities in one of the most popular safe locks on the market,” he says.

**A Senator’s Warning**

Beyond Liberty Safe, Securam ProLogic locks are used by a wide variety of safe manufacturers including Fort Knox, High Noble, FireKing, Tracker, ProSteel, Rhino Metals, Sun Welding, Corporate Safe Specialists, and pharmacy safe companies Cennox and NarcSafe, according to Omo and Rowley’s research. The locks can also be found on safes used by CVS for storing narcotics and by multiple US restaurant chains for storing cash.

Rowley and Omo aren't the first to raise concerns about the security of Securam locks. In March of last year, US senator Ron Wyden wrote an open letter to Michael Casey, then director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, urging Casey to make clear to American businesses that safe locks made by Securam, which is owned by a Chinese parent company, have a manufacturer reset capability. That capability, Wyden wrote, could be used as a backdoor—a risk that had already led to Securam locks being prohibited for US government use like all other locks with a manufacturer reset, even as they're widely used by private US companies.

In response to learning about Rowley and Omo’s research, Wyden wrote in a statement to WIRED that the researchers’ findings represent exactly the risk of a backdoor—whether in safes or in encryption software—that he’s tried to call attention to.

“Experts have warned for years that backdoors will be exploited by our adversaries, yet instead of acting on my warnings and those of security experts, the government has left the American public vulnerable,” Wyden writes. “This is exactly why Congress must reject calls for new backdoors in encryption technology and fight all efforts by other governments, such as the UK, to force US companies to weaken their encryption to facilitate government surveillance.”

**ResetHeist**

Rowley and Omo’s research began with that same concern, that a largely undisclosed unlocking method in safes might represent a broader security risk. They initially went searching for the mechanism behind the Liberty Safe backdoor that had caused a backlash against the company in 2023, and found a relatively straightforward answer: Liberty Safe keeps a reset code for every safe and, in some cases, makes it available to US law enforcement.

Liberty Safe has since written on its website that it now requires a subpoena, a court order, or other compulsory legal process to hand over that master code, and will also delete its copy of the code at a safe owner’s request.

Rowley and Omo planned to reveal the existence of Securam’s vulnerabilities more than a year ago, but held off until now due to the company’s legal threats.Photograph: Ronda Churchill

Rowley and Omo didn't find any security flaw that would allow them to abuse that particular law-enforcement-friendly backdoor. When they started examining the Securam ProLogic lock, however, their research on the higher-end version of the two kinds of Securam lock used on Liberty Safe products revealed something more intriguing. The locks have a reset method documented in their manual, intended in theory for use by locksmiths helping safe owners who have forgotten their unlock code.

Enter a “recovery code” into the lock—set to “999999” by default—and it uses that value, another number stored in the lock called an encryption code, and a third, random variable to compute a code that's displayed on the screen. An authorized locksmith can then read that code to a Securam representative over the phone, who then uses that value and a secret algorithm to compute a reset code the locksmith can enter into the keypad to set a new unlock combination.

Omo and Rowley found that by analyzing the Securam ProLogic's firmware, however, they could find everything they needed to compute that reset code themselves. “There's no hardware security to speak of,” says Rowley. “So we could reverse engineer the whole secret algorithm just by reading the firmware that's in the lock.” The resulting safecracking method requires little more than punching a few numbers into a Python script they wrote. They call the technique ResetHeist.

The researchers note that safe owners can prevent this ResetHeist technique by changing their lock's recovery code or its encryption code. But Securam doesn't recommend that safeguard in any user documentation the researchers could find online, only in a manual for some manufacturers and locksmiths. In another Securam webinar Omo and Rowley found, Securam notes that you can change the codes, but that it’s not necessary, and that the codes are “usually never” changed. In every lock the researchers tested, including about a handful they bought used from eBay, the codes hadn't been changed. “We have not bought a lock on which the recovery method didn't work,” Omo says.

**CodeSnatch**

The second technique the researchers developed, which they call CodeSnatch, is more straightforward. By removing the battery from a Securam ProLogic lock and inserting a small handheld tool they made with a Raspberry Pi minicomputer into an exposed debug port inside, they can extract a “super code” combination from the lock that's displayed on their tool's screen and can be used to immediately open the lock.

The researchers found that CodeSnatch trick by reverse engineering the Renesas chip that serves as the lock's main processor. That task was made far easier by the work of a group called fail0verflow, which had published their analysis of the same Renesas chip as part of their efforts to crack the PlayStation 4, which also uses that processor. Omo and Rowley built their tool to reprogram the chip's firmware to dump all of its information via the debug port—including the encrypted “super code” and the key, also stored on the chip, that decrypts it. “It's really not that challenging,” says Rowley. “Our little tool does that, and then it tells you what the super code is.”

Gaining access to the lock's code via its debug port does require inputting a password. But Omo and Rowley say that password was absurdly simple, and they successfully guessed it. They found that in one newer Securam ProLogic lock manufactured in March of this year, Securam had changed the password, but they were able to learn it again by using a “voltage glitching” technique: By soldering a switch to the voltage regulator on the chip, they could mess with its electrical voltage at the exact moment it performed the password check to bypass that check and then dump the chip's contents—including the new password.

Photograph: Ronda Churchill

In addition to Securam, WIRED reached out to 10 safe manufacturers that appear to use Securam ProLogic locks on their safes, as well as CVS. Most didn’t respond, but a spokesperson for High Noble Safe Company wrote in a statement that WIRED’s inquiry was the first it was learning of Securam’s vulnerabilities, and that it’s now reviewing the security of the locks used by its product line and preparing guidance for customers including “additional physical security measures or potential replacement options.”

A Liberty Safe representative similarly noted the company wasn’t previously aware of Securam’s vulnerabilities. “We are currently investigating this issue with SecuRam and will do whatever it takes to protect our customers,” a statement from the spokesperson reads, “including validating other potential lock suppliers and developing a new proprietary lock system.”

A CVS spokesperson declined to comment on “specific security protocols or devices,” but wrote that “the safety of our employees and patients is a top priority and we are committed to maintaining the highest physical security standards.”

**“Safes That Aren’t Safe”**

Rowley and Omo say that patching Securam Locks' security flaws is possible—their own CodeSnatch tool, in fact, could itself be used to update the locks' firmware. But any such fix would have to be implemented manually, lock by lock, a slow and expensive process.

Although Omo and Rowley aren't releasing the full technical details or any proof-of-concept code for their techniques, they warn that others with less benevolent intentions could still figure out how to replicate their safecracking tricks. “If you have the hardware and you're skilled in the art, this would be roughly a one-week thing,” Omo says.

He and Rowley decided to go public with their research despite that risk to make safe owners aware that their locked metal boxes may not be as secure as they think. More broadly, Omo says that they wanted to call attention to the wide gaps in US cybersecurity standards for consumer products. Securam locks are certified by Underwriters Laboratory, he points out—yet suffered from critical security flaws that will be tough to fix. (Underwriters Laboratory did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.)

In the meantime, they say, safe owners should at least know about their safes' flaws—and not rely on a false sense of security.

“We want Securam to fix this, but more importantly we want people to know how bad this can be,” Omo says. “Electronic locks have electronics inside. And electronics are hard to secure.”

Hackers Went Looking for a Backdoor in High-Security Safes—and Now Can Open Them in Seconds

Spreadsheets, Slack messages, and files linked to an alleged group of North Korean IT workers expose their meticulous job-planning and targeting—and the constant surveillance they're under.

Job hunting is a fresh kind of hell. Hours are wasted sifting through open roles, tweaking cover letters, dealing with obtuse recruiters—and that’s all before you get started with potential interviews. Arguably, some of the world’s most prolific job applicants—or at least most persistent—are those of North Korea’s sprawling IT worker schemes. For years, Kim Jong Un’s repressive regime has successfully sent skilled coders abroad where they’re tasked with finding remote work and sending money back to the heavily sanctioned and isolated nation. Each year, thousands of IT workers bring in somewhere between $250 million and $600 million, according to United Nations estimates.

Now an apparent huge new trove of data, obtained by a cybersecurity researcher, sheds new light on how one group of alleged North Korean IT workers has been running its operations and the meticulous planning involved in the money-making schemes. Money made by scam IT workers contributes to North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction development efforts and ballistic missile programs, the US government has said. Emails, spreadsheets, documents, and chat messages from Google, Github, and Slack accounts allegedly linked to the alleged North Korean scammers show how they track potential jobs, log their ongoing applications, and record earnings with a painstaking attention to detail.

The cache of data, which represents a glimpse into the workaday life of some of North Korea’s IT workers, also purportedly includes fake IDs that may be used for job applications, as well as example cover letters, details of laptop farms, and manuals used to create online accounts. It reinforces how reliant upon US-based tech services, such as Google, Slack, and GitHub, the DPRK workers are.

“I think this is the first time to see their internal \[operations\], how they are working,” says the security researcher, who uses the handle SttyK and asked not to be named due to privacy and security concerns. SttyK, who is presenting their findings at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas today, says an unnamed confidential source provided them with the data from the online accounts. “There are several dozen gigabytes worth of data. There are thousands of emails,” says SttyK, who showed WIRED their presentation ahead of the conference.

North Korea’s IT workers have, in recent years, infiltrated huge Fortune 500 companies, a host of tech and crypto firms, and countless small businesses. While not all IT worker teams use the same approaches, they often use fake or stolen identities to get work and also use facilitators who help cover their digital tracks. The IT workers are often based in Russia or China and are given more freedom and liberties—they’ve been seen enjoying pool parties and dining out on expensive steak dinners—than millions of North Koreans who are not afforded basic human rights. One North Korean defector who operated as an IT worker recently told the BBC that 85 percent of their ill-gained earnings were sent to North Korea. “It’s still much better than when we were in North Korea,” they said.

Multiple screenshots of spreadsheets in the data obtained by SttyK show a cluster of IT workers that appear to be split into 12 groups—each with around a dozen members—and an overall “master boss.” The spreadsheets are methodologically put together to track jobs and budgets: They have summary and analysis tabs that drill down into the data for each group. Rows and columns are neatly filled out; they appear to be updated and maintained regularly.

The tables show the potential target jobs for IT workers. One sheet, which seemingly includes daily updates, lists job descriptions (“need a new react and web3 developer”), the companies advertising them, and their locations. It also links to the vacancies on freelance websites or contact details for those conducting the hiring. One “status” column says whether they are “waiting” or if there has been “contact.”

Screenshots of one spreadsheet seen by WIRED appears to list the potential real-world names of the IT workers themselves. Alongside each name is a register of the make and model of computer they allegedly have, as well as monitors, hard drives, and serial numbers for each device. The “master boss,” who does not have a name listed, is apparently using a 34-inch monitor and two 500GB hard drives.

One “analysis” page in the data seen by SttyK, the security researcher, shows a list of types of work the group of fraudsters are involved in: AI, blockchain, web scraping, bot development, mobile app and web development, trading, CMS development, desktop app development, and “others.” Each category has a potential budget listed and a “total paid” field. A dozen graphs in one spreadsheet claim to track how much they have been paid, the most lucrative regions to make money from, and whether getting paid weekly, monthly, or as a fixed sum is the most successful.

“It’s professionally run,” says Michael “Barni” Barnhart, a leading North Korean hacking and threat researcher who works for insider threat security firm DTEX. “Everyone has to make their quotas. Everything needs to be jotted down. Everything needs to be noted,” he says. The researcher adds that he has seen similar levels of record keeping with North Korea’s sophisticated hacking groups, which have stolen billions in cryptocurrency in recent years, and are largely separate to IT worker schemes. Barnhart has viewed the data obtained by SttyK and says it overlaps with what he and other researchers were tracking.

“I do think this data is very real,” says Evan Gordenker, a consulting senior manager at the Unit 42 threat intelligence team of cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks, who has also seen the data SttyK obtained. Gordenker says the firm had been tracking multiple accounts in the data and that one of the prominent GitHub accounts was previously exposing the IT workers’ files publicly. None of the DPRK-linked email addresses responded to WIRED’s requests for comment.

GitHub removed three developer accounts after WIRED got in touch, with Raj Laud, the company’s head of cybersecurity and online safety, saying they have been suspended in line with its “spam and inauthentic activity” rules. “The prevalence of such nation-state threat activity is an industry-wide challenge and a complex issue that we take seriously,” Laud says.

Google declined to comment on specific accounts WIRED provided, citing policies around account privacy and security. “We have processes and policies in place to detect these operations and report them to law enforcement,” says Mike Sinno, director of detection and response at Google. “These processes include taking action against fraudulent activity, proactively notifying targeted organizations, and working with public and private partnerships to share threat intelligence that strengthens defenses against these campaigns.”

“We have strict policies in place that prohibit the use of Slack by sanctioned individuals or entities, and we take swift action when we identify activity that violates these rules,” says Allen Tsai, senior director of corporate communications at Slack’s parent company Salesforce. “We cooperate with law enforcement and relevant authorities as required by law and do not comment on specific accounts or ongoing investigations.”

Another spreadsheet also lists members as being part of a “unit” called “KUT,” a potential abbreviation of North Korea’s Kim Chaek University of Technology, which has been cited in US government warnings about DPRK-linked IT workers. One column in the spreadsheet also lists “ownership” as “Ryonbong,” likely referring to defense company Korea Ryonbong General Corporation, which has been sanctioned by the US since 2005 and UN since 2009. “The vast majority of them \[IT workers\] are subordinate to and working on behalf of entities directly involved in the DPRK’s UN-prohibited WMD and ballistic missile programs, as well as its advanced conventional weapons development and trade sectors,” the US Treasury Department said in a May 2022 report.

Across the myriad of IT worker-linked GitHub and LinkedIn accounts, CVs, and portfolio websites that researchers have identified in recent years, there are often distinct patterns. Email addresses and accounts use the same names; CVs can look identical. “Reusing resume content is also something that we’ve seen frequently across their profiles,” says Benjamin Racenberg, a senior researcher who has tracked North Korean IT worker personas at cybersecurity firm Nisos. Racenberg says the scammers are increasingly adopting AI for image manipulation, video calls, and as part of scripts they use. “For portfolio websites, we’ve seen them use templates and use the same template over and over again,” Racenberg says.

That all points to some day-to-day drudgery for the IT workers tasked with running the criminal schemes for the Kim regime. “It’s a lot of copy and paste,” Unit 42’s Gordenker says. One suspected IT worker Gordenker has tracked was spotted using 119 identities. “He Googles Japanese name generators—spelled wrong of course—and then over the course of about four hours, just fills out spreadsheets just full of names and potential places \[to target\].”

The detailed documentation also serves another purpose, though: tracking the IT workers and their actions. “There’s a lot of moving parts once the money gets into the actual hands of leadership, so they're going to need accurate numbers,” DTEX’s Barnhart says. Employee monitoring software has been seen on the scammers’ machines in some instances and researchers claim North Koreans in job interviews won’t answer questions about Kim.

SttyK says they saw dozens of screen recordings in Slack channels showing the workers daily activity. In screenshots of a Slack instance, the “Boss” account sends a message: “@channel: Everyone should try to work more than at least 14 hrs a day.” The next message they sent says: “This time track includes idling time, as you know.”

“Interestingly, their communication has been all English, not Korean,” SttyK says. The researcher, along with others, speculates this may be for a couple of reasons: first, to blend into legitimate activity; and secondly, to help improve their English skills for applications and interviews. Google account data, SttyK says, shows they were frequently using online translation to process messages.

Beyond a glimpse at the ways in which the IT workers track their performance, the data SttyK obtained gives some limited clues about the day-to-day lives of the individual scammers themselves. One spreadsheet lists a volleyball tournament the IT workers apparently had planned; in Slack channels, they celebrated birthdays and shared inspirational memes from a popular Instagram account. In some screen recordings, SttyK says, they can be seen playing _Counter-Strike_. “I felt there was a strong unity among the members,” SttyK says.

Leak Reveals the Workaday Lives of North Korean IT Scammers

A string of US armory break-ins, kept quiet by authorities for months, points to a growing security crisis—and signs of an inside job.

A string of previously undisclosed break-ins at Tennessee National Guard armories last fall marks the latest in a growing series of security breaches at military facilities across the United States, raising fresh concerns about the vulnerability of US armories to theft and intrusion.

A confidential memo from the Tennessee Fusion Center reviewed by WIRED details four break-ins at Tennessee National Guard armories over a seven-week span. In one incident, thieves made off with night vision goggles, laser target locators, and thermal weapons sights, among other equipment. At others, intruders breached fences, tripped alarms, and gained access to supply rooms discovered in the aftermath to have been unlocked.

At least some of the break-ins seem to point to potential insider help. In Covington, Tennessee, for example, evidence suggests intruders may have known in advance the location of a secure key control box. At other sites, attempts were made to bypass alarms and entry points.

The memo, which was intended solely for law enforcement use, does not indicate that any weapons were stolen; however, a government anti-terrorism coordinator is quoted as saying: “These events are concerning not only due to the stolen items being sensitive in nature but also because of the indicators for some insider knowledge being needed for successful breach and theft.”

The document, first obtained by the nonprofit watchdog group Property of the People, was shared exclusively with WIRED.

The break-ins remain under active investigation and have drawn the attention of the Pentagon’s Office of the Provost Marshal General—the US Army’s leading law enforcement authority. A senior police source informed WIRED on Tuesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation. The FBI declined to confirm.

“FBI policy prohibits confirming or denying an investigation unless in rare circumstances when publicity would help the investigation, such as in seeking a missing child or trying to identify a bank robber,” Elizabeth Clement-Webb, an FBI public affairs officer, says. “The matter you’re inquiring about does not meet that exception, so it would not be appropriate to comment.”

The Pentagon referred questions to the National Guard. The Guard did not respond to a request for comment.

Initially regarded as isolated incidents, the memo cites years’ worth of FBI and Defense Department reporting on what agents call “domestic violent extremists,” or DVEs, discussing plans to raid armories for weapons and gear, leading analysts to suspect organized activity. Domestic intelligence has consistently flagged violent militia members and racially motivated extremists eyeing armories as soft targets.

“Although DVEs previously have stolen some lower-level military gear, the FBI has not identified any instances in which a DVE successfully raided an armory to steal heavy military equipment,” the memo reads. “To circumvent such a raid, FBI and DoD are enhancing liaison with local armories and military facilities to address gaps in reporting about current plots to exploit armory vulnerabilities and increase opportunities to detect and prevent DVE theft of military equipment.”

Between 2020 and 2024, the memo says, at least four FBI subjects discussed raiding military facilities for heavy weapons, including .50-caliber firearms and machine guns. Three had confirmed military backgrounds. One—a former Guard member—identified specific armories that he had served in, while describing how best to exploit their security. It’s unclear whether any charges were brought.

Extremist chatter cited by the document echos these ambitions. In early 2024, a militia-linked Telegram user proposed assessing armory vulnerabilities with help from sympathetic firefighters and sought military or law enforcement recruits for inside information. In another case, an active-duty tank commander claimed he could sway an armorer to hand over weapons, while a former Air Force contractor talked about raiding a Guard facility to seize mortars and secure land.

Together, these incidents point to a persistent and ideologically varied interest in exploiting armory weaknesses. The Tennessee break-ins, meanwhile, preceded several other armory breaches around the country, underscoring a broader trend in security threats.

"Especially when coupled with more recent events, the document makes clear that violent neo-Nazis and far-right militia groups continue to pose a serious and ongoing threat—and that state governments are failing in their duty to secure dangerous military hardware,” says Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People.

This year alone, thieves stole three Humvees and other military gear from an Army Reserve center in Tustin, California; raided storage containers at a Colorado National Guard facility; and allegedly attempted to steal body armor and communications gear from a US Army Ranger site in Washington. In the latter case, law enforcement claim the suspects used their status as veterans to gain entry to the base, highlighting ongoing concerns about insider access.

Similarly, a break-in at a Massachusetts Army Reserve center in 2015—during which numerous rifles and pistols were stolen—was carried out by a former service member, later sentenced to 11 years in prison. Their familiarity with the facility’s security systems and physical layout reportedly enabled the robbery.

For decades, US military stockpiles have been prime targets for high-stakes theft. In the 1970s, arms traffickers raided facilities in California, escaping with caches of powerful weapons. A 1976 heist at a Massachusetts armory turned up a shoulder-fired missile launcher. And in 1995, a former soldier commandeered a tank in San Diego, leading police of a destructive, city-wide chase.

Despite repeated policy changes and years of heightened scrutiny, the nation's thousands of armories remain vulnerable to both external intruders and those with insider access. Modern security improvements have done little to deter interest in breaching them. In Tennessee alone, the fusion center memo notes that state officials have received at least 25 suspicious activity reports over the past decade, detailing attempted surveillance and theft.

Luke Baumgartner, a former Army officer and extremism researcher at George Washington University, says the Tennessee armory break-ins do appear to bear the hallmarks of an inside job—assuming suspicions about the intruders knowing the locations of secure keys are accurate.

“It’s not an uncommon occurrence,” he says, pointing to the recent thefts at Washington’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord. In June, the FBI arrested two former service members for their alleged involvement in the thefts and the hammer assault of a soldier on base. The FBI recovered a stockpile of weapons found in the suspects’ home, amid an assortment of Nazi iconography and white supremacist literature.

Extremist ties to the military can run in both directions, Baumgartner explains: Some groups actively recruit veterans, contractors, and even active-duty troops to exploit their skills and access. Others will join the military explicitly to gain tactical training, weapons experience, and insider knowledge they can later pass on.

Weapons, meanwhile, aren’t the only concern. “There’s sensitive equipment in there,” he says. “There’s secure radios. There’s equipment that contains classified information. You have to have a certain level of clearance to access some of that.”

Such heists could also carry symbolic weight for anti-government extremists, Baumgartner says, by casting the federal government as weaker than it appears. “To the casual observer, what it signals is that even institutions we think of as being shielded from this sort of action are not actually immune.”

Tag

#mac