In 2023, the world felt like it was on the brink. A presidential election is coming up in the United States, and there is a resurgent candidate who threatens to wreak havoc on all of 2016 and 2020. Artificial intelligence evolved rapidly, as if out of nowhere, heralding the impending promise of a great society and disruption along its exponential curve. And the world's richest man is using his powers to propel a more ruthless world of technology, from free social media and over-sold driver assistance features to AI with "rebellious tendencies." continued to use.
In the midst of this uncertainty, a new war between Israel and Hamas has added yet another atrocity to the smoldering horrors of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. These wars reverberated online in the form of propaganda, hate speech, and cyberattacks, with far-reaching real-world effects. Meanwhile, state-sponsored Chinese hackers are laying the groundwork for future cyberwars and ransomware gangs are making a comeback. This year has been a great year of present and impending chaos, all reflected in the digital mirror.
Every year, WIRED compiles a list of the most dangerous people, groups, and organizations on the Internet. That list includes both those who intentionally endanger innocent people and those whose actions, regardless of intent, impact and destabilize the world as we know it in many ways. be. In a sense. In no particular order, here are our picks for 2023.
Hamas
No event in 2023 shook geopolitics as suddenly and shockingly as Hamas' atrocities against civilians in southern Israel on October 7th. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took hundreds hostage in the attack, which immediately sparked a war that threatened to destabilize the region. It also rocked the tech world and raised questions about the digital technologies that have enabled Hamas' operations, from the millions of dollars it has raised through cryptocurrencies to its Telegram channels, where it spreads propaganda and videos of violence. are doing. In 2014 he said that with the rise of ISIS, every technology platform in the world must question whether and how ISIS is enabling extremist violence. did. Now, 10 years later, new horrific bloodshed shows how that reckoning continues.
Elon Musk
A year ago, Elon Musk might have been thought of as a brilliant technologist with occasional destructive and troll tendencies. In 2023, these trends appeared to take over his public identity. Twitter, now renamed "X" thanks to Mr. Musk's branding whims, has welcomed back conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones this year and even amplified anti-Semitic rhetoric from one account. When advertisers complained, Musk apologized for the mistake and told them to "fuck it" in just one conversation. This raises questions about whether and in what form the platform, once a central platform for online conversation, will survive under Mr. Musk's rule.
Amid this collapse, Musk's emerging startup xAI released his Grok, his AI chatbot that Musk praised for having fewer guardrails than his OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk is facing calls for an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission over his own statements about how monkeys died during experiments conducted by brain implant startup Neuralink. And in mid-December, Tesla recalled nearly all of its vehicle models sold in the U.S. to fix the Autopilot feature. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that Tesla's safety measures to ensure attentive drivers (many drivers were no doubt not, perhaps due in part to Musk's own explanations of driver-assistance features) were ineffective. It was deemed sufficient.
Five years ago, WIRED published an article that featured Dr. Musk's face on its cover and emphasized his personality as Dr. Musk. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explained: Today it is becoming increasingly clear which side of this dual personality is in control.
Sandworm
Despite sanctions, indictments, and even a $10 million bounty, Russia's highly aggressive team of military intelligence hackers known as Sandworm still exists and continues to operate. . As Russia's invasion of Ukraine approaches its third brutal year, they do seem to have shifted their focus to the conflict.
It has been revealed that Sandworm carried out the third power outage cyberattack against a Ukrainian power company this year. This time it was during a Russian airstrike against the same city. It then infiltrated Ukrainian military communications in a more traditional, espionage-focused attempt to gain an advantage in Ukraine's counterattack. And there is evidence that Sandworm is responsible for the cyberattack that hit telecommunications company Kievstar this month and crippled the internet and mobile communications for millions in a separate series of attacks. In other words, the group continues to earn a reputation as the Kremlin's most dangerous hackers.
Alphv
If Cl0p were this year's most ruthless ransomware hacker, Alphv, also known as Black Cat, would definitely be a formidable opponent. The group is associated with the hackers who carried out the 2021 Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, which gained new notoriety in September when it targeted MGM Resorts International and crippled the entire hotel and casino chain's computer systems. and ended up losing $100 million. According to MGM estimates. More broadly, the FBI says Alphv infiltrated more than 1,000 of his organizations and extorted more than $300 million in ransoms.
In mid-December, the FBI announced that Alphv had seized a dark website that posted stolen data of victims. A few hours later, the site resurfaced and Alphv said it would "unblock" the site and comply with rules not to attack critical infrastructure systems in the future. The site was quickly shut down again. But the chaos is likely to continue, as none of the group's members have been arrested or even charged in absentia.
Bolt Typhoon
For years, the cybersecurity community has wondered who the “Chinese Sandworm” is. This year may be the closest we've ever come to an answer. In May, it was revealed that a group of hackers that Microsoft dubbed "Volt Typhoon" had injected malware into power grids in the mainland United States and Guam, apparently with the aim of targeting U.S. military bases. The purpose was also to control the flow of electricity. The Washington Post recently revealed that Bolt Typhoon targets are expanding to other types of critical infrastructure, from oil and gas pipelines to major ports on the West Coast to water utilities in Hawaii. I made it.
The intentions of this group and its supervisors are never clear, but cybersecurity and geopolitical analysts believe this lays the groundwork for disrupting key U.S. systems in times of crisis, such as China's invasion of Taiwan. I am becoming more and more convinced that it is a thing.
Donald Trump
Last year was the first time since 2015 that Donald Trump was not on this list. I hope you enjoy your vacation!
With less than 11 months left until the 2024 US presidential election, Trump is leading by a wide margin in Republican primary polls. He used his newfound relevance to launch disturbing attacks against those he considered his enemies from his own mostly right-wing-dominated "Truth Social" platform.
In a post there, he vowed that if elected, he would launch federal investigations into media outlets and journalists who criticize him and prosecute President Biden. He lashed out at the wife of one of the judges presiding over the civil case against him for fraud, and blamed his political opponents for facing criminal charges for election interference and mishandling classified information. And he continues to promote discredited claims that he won the 2020 election, which the U.S. Department of Justice says was the reason for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
More specifically, all of this may find a receptive audience among Trump's base. It pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, enacted "Muslim bans" and family separation border rules, scrapped pandemic prevention measures and appeared to deny the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak, which has left hundreds of people dead. This means that it could help re-create a different kind of presidency. Thousands of Americans died. here we go again.
Sam Altman
Leading a company that is arguably leading the race to develop the most groundbreaking technology in history is enough to classify anyone as one of the most dangerous people in history. --Not just this year, but throughout human history. Other than this small detail, Altman appears, at first glance, to be the kindest CEO of OpenAI imaginable. Surprisingly, he decided not to take any shares in the company. He has advocated for stronger government regulation of AI in interviews and Congressional hearings. He seems to truly believe in a prosperous future for humanity in a post-Singularity world.
But a brief and dramatic power struggle within OpenAI in November revealed a less comforting side to the company's leader and the newly consolidated powers that surround him. Altman has argued in the past that OpenAI's unusual structure, in which a nonprofit oversees a for-profit company, provides a kind of restraint that maintains the company's security-conscious technological ambitions. But after Mr. Altman was fired by OpenAI's board of directors, who almost immediately took back control of the company, he also fired several board members, including two ethically-minded and talented altruists. The string broke. In this new era, OpenAI is now firmly controlled by one person, his leadership, his team, and his $2.8 trillion partner and investor, Microsoft.
So let's hope his plans for the future of this world-changing technology are good. Either way, he will be very difficult to stop.
Predatory Sparrow
This group, which calls itself Predatory Sparrow in translation from his Gonjeshke Darande in Persian, is hardly a household name in the world of cybersecurity. But in 2022, the company raised alarm after launching a cyber attack on multiple Iranian companies, including a steel mill, and releasing a video that it claimed had somehow caused a fire at the facility. The group calls itself hacktivists, but the Iranian government claims it has ties to the state of Israel, and the hackers claim to have uncovered ties between these companies and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. A collection of documents stolen in the breach was also leaked.
Now, in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war, with Houthi rebels firing Iranian missiles into Israel, Predatory Sparrow launches a second major cyberattack against Iran, reporting Reports indicate that up to 70 percent of gas stations across Iran have been closed. This is a work worth paying attention to.
Cl0p
In 2023, ransomware is on the rise again. This year is likely to be the second-worst year on record for total extortion from violent hacker groups in the ransomware industry, according to cryptocurrency firm Chainalysis. But perhaps no group has caused more damage this year than those behind the Cl0p malware.
According to Emsisoft, a security firm specializing in ransomware, the Cl0p gang started exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in file transfer software MOVEit in May and carried out a shocking series of breaches at more than 2,000 organizations. did. A single victim, the healthcare company Maximus, lost control of the data of at least 8 million of his people as a result of this breach. Hackers stole an additional 1.3 million records from the Maine state government. In total, at least 62 million people were affected and the Cl0p hacker is still at large.
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