Smartphones and face recognition are being combined to create new digital travel documents. The paper passport’s days are numbered—despite new privacy risks.
AI voice cloning and deepfakes are supercharging scams. One method to protect your loved ones and yourself is to create secret code words to verify someone’s identity in real time.
Plus: Google’s U-turn on creepy “fingerprint” tracking, the LockBit ransomware gang’s teased comeback, and a potential US ban on the most popular routers in America.
In the hit virtual reality game Gorilla Tag, you swing your arms to pull your primate character around—clambering through virtual worlds, climbing up trees and, above all, trying to avoid an infectious mob of other gamers. If you’re caught, you join the horde. However, some kids playing the game claim to have found a way to cheat and easily “tag” opponents.
Over the past year, teenagers have produced video tutorials showing how to side-load a virtual private network (VPN) onto Meta’s virtual reality headsets and use the location-changing technology to get ahead in the game. Using a VPN, according to the tutorials, introduces a delay that makes it easier to sneak up and tag other players.
While the workaround is likely to be an annoying but relatively harmless bit of in-game cheating, there’s a catch. The free VPN app that the video tutorials point to, Big Mama VPN, is also selling access to its users’ home internet connections—with buyers essentially piggybacking on the VR headset’s IP address to hide their own online activity.
A free VPN app called Big Mama is selling access to people’s home internet networks. Kids are using it to cheat in a VR game while researchers warn of bigger security risks.
Experts say the catchall term for online fraud furthers harm against victims and could dissuade people from reporting attempts to bilk them out of their money.
Plus: The US indicts North Koreans in fake IT worker scheme, file-sharing firm Cleo warns customers to patch a vulnerability amid live attacks, and more.
Western authorities say they’ve identified a network that found a new way to clean drug gangs’ dirty cash. WIRED gained exclusive access to the investigation.
