Welcome to Kernel Panic! A weekly newsletter by Lily Hay Newman and Matt Burgess from inside the new world of privacy and digital security. To receive this newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up here. When every random text message feels like it’s a scam, and with AI supercharging digital fraud, old-time credit card
Cambodia’s prime minister said Wednesday the country had eradicated the large-scale scam compounds it became known for globally, without providing significant new evidence. Other governments and experts said Cambodia has not done enough against the perpetrators of the scam industry that has harmed people globally and called for criminal prosecutions. “As a result of our
Security researcher Matthew “Zigula” Gore-Kormanik was analyzing a fraudulent dating app called Dora when he got a pop-up message saying he was receiving a call from Jennifer. According to her bio, she’s a 41-year-old Sagittarius with red hair, blue eyes, and piercings. She likes music, horror movies, nightlife, and sports. Gore-Kormanik answered the call, but
Black Axe is a shadowy criminal network known for its extreme violence and operates across Africa, Europe and North America. A BBC Eye investigation in 2021 suggested that the syndicate had become one of the most far-reaching and dangerous organised crime groups in the world. Nigeria is its main recruitment ground and many of its
On Chinese social media, people have also reported experiencing variations of the scam involving other corporate software apps, including Webex, a video conferencing platform owned by Cisco, and Cliq, a workplace communication app owned by the Indian software giant Zoho. Since February 2025, 71 percent of the over 150 reviews of Webex on Apple’s Chinese
We’ve all experienced that semi-awkward moment of being approached on the street and asked to make a donation to a cause we’ve probably never heard of. Either because we feel inclined to donate to avoid guilt or because we genuinely feel compelled to contribute, we’ll throw a few bucks in the pot. But the problem
