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On July 22, 2025, the European police agency Europol said a long-running investigation led by the French Police resulted in the arrest of a 38-year-old administrator of XSS, a Russian-language cybercrime forum with more than 50,000 members. The action has triggered an ongoing frenzy of speculation and panic among XSS denizens about the identity of the […]
This post was written by Sahar Kazmi and edited by Jaime Mears. A longer version of this post appeared in the Library of Congress staff Gazette on July 25th, 2025. The Library of Congress has embarked on a new multiyear digital initiative, LOCal, that will help expand access to the digital collections through partnerships with […]
Recurring guest writer, Nina Grant discusses how today’s libraries are helping kids grow kinder, one story at a time. Enjoy! When some people think of libraries, they picture piles of books and maybe a grumpy librarian shushing kids for sneezing too loud. But here’s what’s actually happening: libraries across the world are turning into mini […]
Fraudsters are flooding Discord and other social media platforms with ads for hundreds of polished online gaming and wagering websites that lure people with free credits and eventually abscond with any cryptocurrency funds deposited by players. Here’s a closer look at the social engineering tactics and remarkable traits of this sprawling network of more than […]
This is a fascinating summary of a big problem with some AI-enhanced library products: The AI powered Library Search That Refused to Search (Aaron Tay). The link to the ACRLog post is also worth a read: “We Couldn’t Generate an Answer for your Question”. In a nutshell, it appears that Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI content filter, […]
Three news releases in quick succession made my antennae stand up, though they’ve actually been trickling out over the past month. In the order I saw them: Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential. A new privacy-focussed LLM Chatbot from Proton. I’ve only poked at it a bit, but it seems solid, aside […]
KrebsOnSecurity recently heard from a reader whose boss’s email account got phished and was used to trick one of the company’s customers into sending a large payment to scammers. An investigation into the attacker’s infrastructure points to a long-running Nigerian cybercrime ring that is actively targeting established companies in the transportation and aviation industries. Image: […]
Today’s guest post is from Sabrina Templeton, a 2025 Junior Fellow at the Library of Congress. Sabrina is pursuing her MS in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to starting her degree, she worked as a software engineer and she is passionate about the intersection of library and technology spaces. As this […]
On Sunday, July 20, Microsoft Corp. issued an emergency security update for a vulnerability in SharePoint Server that is actively being exploited to compromise vulnerable organizations. The patch comes amid reports that malicious hackers have used the SharePoint flaw to breach U.S. federal and state agencies, universities, and energy companies. Image: Shutterstock, by Ascannio. In […]
Today’s post is from Abbey Potter and Isabel Brador of the Digital Strategy Directorate and Kate Murray of the Digital Collections Management & Services Division here at the Library of Congress. Since January 2025, a new Library of Congress working group has been exploring ways to bring responsible AI together with digital preservation through an […]
Security researchers recently revealed that the personal information of millions of people who applied for jobs at McDonald’s was exposed after they guessed the password (“123456”) for the fast food chain’s account at Paradox.ai, a company that makes artificial intelligence based hiring chatbots used by many Fortune 500 firms. Paradox.ai said the security oversight was […]
Today’s guest post is from Heather Alvord, Liz Caringola, Liz Holdzkom, Genevieve Havemeyer-King and Kate Murray of the Digital Collections Management & Services Division and Ted Westervelt, Chief, US/Anglo Division at the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement (RFS) is well into its second decade, having first launched in 2014. It […]
Marko Elez, a 25-year-old employee at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been granted access to sensitive databases at the U.S. Social Security Administration, the Treasury and Justice departments, and the Department of Homeland Security. So it should fill all Americans with a deep sense of confidence to learn that Mr. Elez over […]
Authorities in the United Kingdom this week arrested four people aged 17 to 20 in connection with recent data theft and extortion attacks against the retailers Marks & Spencer and Harrods, and the British food retailer Co-op Group. The breaches have been linked to a prolific but loosely-affiliated cybercrime group dubbed “Scattered Spider,” whose other […]
Microsoft today released updates to fix at least 137 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software. None of the weaknesses addressed this month are known to be actively exploited, but 14 of the flaws earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” rating, meaning they could be exploited to seize control over vulnerable Windows PCs with […]
I just spent some time exploring the site at Systemic Misalignment: Exposing Key Failures of Surface-Level AI Alignment Methods, and it’s a thought-provoking place. In the context of AI, “alignment is the process of encoding human values and goals into large language models to make them as helpful, safe, and reliable as possible.[1]” Researchers at […]
In May 2025, the U.S. government sanctioned a Chinese national for operating a cloud provider linked to the majority of virtual currency investment scam websites reported to the FBI. But a new report finds the accused continues to operate a slew of established accounts at American tech companies — including Facebook, Github, PayPal and Twitter/X. […]
In this interview, Amber Paranick and Kelly Bennett discuss their work on the Mass Communications Archive, a collection that documents how media is created, distributed, and consumed in the digital age. Drawing on their expertise as reference librarians, they explain how they navigated challenges in scope and selected content that complements the Library’s more traditionally […]
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) briefed Capitol Hill staff recently on hardening the security of their mobile devices, after a contacts list stolen from the personal phone of the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was reportedly used to fuel a series of text messages and phone calls impersonating her to […]
This blog post is co-authored by Isabel Brador and Sahar Kazmi. Vivian Li, the Library’s 2025 Innovator in Residence, spent several days learning from Library staff and exploring the collections during a visit to the Library in May. Her trip followed the selection of Seattle, Southeastern Wyoming, and Chicago as the three locations for “Anywhere […]
