Firefox joins Chrome and Edge as sleeper extensions spy on users

A group of cybercriminals called DarkSpectre is believed to be behind three campaigns spread by malicious browser extensions: ShadyPanda, GhostPoster, and Zoom Stealer. Malwarebytes Labs wrote about the ShadyPanda campaign in December 2025, warning users that extensions which had behaved Read More …

In 2025, age checks started locking people out of the internet

If 2024 was the year lawmakers talked about online age verification, 2025 was the year they actually flipped the switch.​ In 2025, across parts of Europe and the US, age checks for certain websites (especially pornography) turned long‑running child‑protection debates Read More …

U.S. DOJ: Disney Agrees to $10M Civil Penalty and Injunction for Alleged Violations of Children’s Privacy Laws

The Justice Department announced today that a federal court has entered a stipulated order resolving a case against Disney Worldwide Services Inc. and Disney Entertainment Operations LLC, (collectively, Disney). The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated this matter, negotiated a resolution Read More …

Meet the team that investigates when journalists and activists get hacked with government spyware

For more than a decade, dozens of journalists and human rights activists have been targeted and hacked by governments all over the world. Cops and spies in Ethiopia, Greece, Hungary, India, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, among Read More …

The EU prepares ground for wider data retention – and VPN providers are among the targets

EU governments are pushing to widen data retention obligations for apps that citizens use every day – and the best VPN apps are among those targeted. A new internal document dated November 27 (first published by Netzpolitik) provides important insights Read More …

Trump’s national security strategy wants spy agencies to watch world supply chains

President Donald Trump’s national security strategy tasks the U.S. intelligence community with monitoring global supply chains as part of a sweeping goal to decouple the nation’s economy from foreign adversaries and advance American economic interests. The demands listed in the Read More …

WhatsApp security flaw lets experts scrape 3.5 billion user numbers

WhatsApp users may need to take extra steps to protect their account information following a potentially concerning discovery. A study by researchers at the University of Vienna revealed the app’s contact-discovery system enabled the collection of extensive WhatsApp user data Read More …

Italian political consultant says he was targeted with Paragon spyware

Francesco Nicodemo, a consultant who works with left-wing politicians in Italy, has gone public as the latest person targeted with Paragon spyware in the country. On Thursday, Nicodemo said in a Facebook post that for 10 months, he preferred not Read More …

Phone location data of top EU officials available for sale

Journalists in Europe found it was “easy” to spy on top European Union officials using commercially obtained location histories sold by data brokers, despite the continent having some of the strongest data protection laws in the world. EU officials said Read More …

Clearview AI faces criminal heat for ignoring EU data fines

Privacy advocates at Noyb filed a criminal complaint against Clearview AI for scraping social media users’ faces without consent to train its AI algorithms. Austria-based Noyb (None of Your Business) is targeting the US company and its executives, arguing that Read More …