A plastic spoon's worth of tiny fragments, quietly accumulating inside the human brain. That image is no longer science fiction....
SSRIs May Trigger Tinnitus
A new study identifies a specific serotonin circuit that triggers the auditory system, explaining why SSRIs can worsen tinnitus and offering a new target for treatment.
FBI report reveals cybercrime losses hit $20B high with phishing, spoofing dominant
Cybercrime losses have risen significantly, surpassing $20 billion, while phishing and spoofing is the dominant cyber-enabled fraud activity, reports the FBI in its annual cybercrime report.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Report 2025, compiled from the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), reports that losses have climbed 26 percent from 2024, to reach a total of $20.88 billion in losses. The average loss was $20,699.
The age demographic of over 60s suffered the worst, far in front with losses of $7.75 billion and 201,266 complaints. The demographic just below — the 50 to 59 group — suffered the second-most with $3.68 billion in losses and 124,820 complaints.
Combined, these two demographics (50 to 60-plus) accounted for more than half of all losses in 2025. Phishing and spoofing is the most common complaint category, with 191,561 reports. Extortion followed with 89,129 complaints.
Identity theft and impersonation are among the financially damaging schemes recorded, with the former accounting for $185.8 million in losses, while government impersonation scams resulted in $797.9 million in losses. The most damaging crime types were investment, business email compromise, tech and customer support, personal data breach, and confidence or romance scams. Investment fraud accounted for $8.65 billion in losses.
The FBI notes that “cyber‑enabled fraud” now represents nearly 85 percent of all losses reported to IC3, and 45 percent of all complaints, revealing its devastating nature. This is where criminals use the Internet or other technology to commit fraud and which involves the theft of money, data, identities, or the creation of counterfeit goods or services.
As identity‑centric attacks grow more sophisticated, the FBI is urging organizations to strengthen authentication and access controls. Recommended practices include eliminating default passwords and credentials when installing software, and requiring all accounts with password logins to comply with NIST standards.
Another recommendation to protect against ransomware is to enable multi‑factor authentication across systems such as webmail, VPNs and administrative accounts.
Voice impersonation a systemic challenge for healthcare
Jason Barr argues that the FBI’s IC3 report reveals how cybercrime has shifted. The VP of healthcare for Pindrop sees the growth in social engineering tactics, real-time deception, and AI-enabled impersonations as part of a pattern.
“Many of the highest-loss categories appear to involve some form of human interaction — conversations, not just code,” he writes on the Pindop blog.
“To me, that suggests a meaningful shift in the threat model. Security is no longer defined solely at login. It’s being tested in real time, at the moment of interaction.”
The result is that identity verification is no longer something enterprises can verify only at login, it must be continuously assessed during the interaction itself, with biometrics such as voice and behavior and with device intelligence. Continuously assessing authenticity could combat the threat of genAI and injection attacks.
Barr believes this shift has serious implications for healthcare, which relies heavily on phone‑based workflows. These voice channels are the hub of sensitive operations and lead to Protected Health Information (PHI), benefits and internal systems. But they remain some of the least protected.
Healthcare identity is also complex with patients, caregivers, providers and staff often acting on behalf of others. This complexity is exacerbated by fragmented systems, Barr argues, creating ambiguity that traditional IAM tools struggle with.
Authentication methods such as knowledge‑based questions, one‑time passwords and agent judgement have become increasingly fragile in an AI‑driven threat landscape. Synthetic voices, stolen data and automated impersonation tools now make it far easier to bypass these controls.
The pace of growth for AI-voice-cloning is such that it drew congressional scrutiny in the U.S. New Hampshire senator Maggie Hassan last week pressed four major companies to explain what they are doing to stop scammers from turning synthetic speech tools into engines of fraud. Hassan asked ElevenLabs, LOVO, Speechify and VEED for detailed answers about what they are doing to prevent bad actors from using their services.
Meanwhile, Barr notes that attackers are using AI to erode trust in the voice channel itself. Synthetic callers can convincingly mimic real people, probe authentication flows and launch targeted impersonation attempts at scale.
For healthcare, Barr concludes, the inability to verify who or what is on the other end of a call represents systemic exposure, with direct implications for PHI breaches, account takeover, fraudulent claims and downstream attacks such as ransomware.
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Roblox on the hook for $12.5M in Nevada online child safety settlement
Roblox has agreed to pay $12.5 million to the State of Nevada, in part of a settlement deal that “resolves potential litigation over allegations that Roblox failed to adequately safeguard children while they played the online game,” according to a release from Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford.
Ten million is committed to instituting age assurance for all users, which encompasses facial age estimation or government ID for age verification, as well as for “encouraging children to engage in non-digital activities.” One million will be spent on a two-year campaign to educate minors and adults about online safety. The remainder will be used to create a law enforcement liaison position to work with state law enforcement agencies over concerns about the platform.
Ford says “the injunctive relief that Roblox has agreed to will give parents the tools they need to protect their children on the platform; institute default protections to block predators from engaging with children; and ensure that messages involving minors are not encrypted.”
Per reporting in CNET, Roblox is facing more than 140 lawsuits over alleged shortcomings in online safety. Nevada is now closing its probe.
Roblox still claiming to be online safety paragon
Roblox has continued to push online safety features as evidence that it takes child online safety as seriously as anyone. A post on the company’s blog from CEO David Baszucki outlines two new age-based accounts for younger users: Roblox Kids is tailored to users ages 5 to 8, while Roblox Select will target users ages 9 to 15.“When they roll out in early June, these accounts will more closely align content access, communication settings, and parental controls with a user’s age,” Baszucki says. “We’re also establishing an ongoing selection process for games available to users under 16. Based on our selection criteria, we believe age-checked users under 16 will have access to the vast majority of their favorite games at launch. Age-checked users 16 and older will not see any change to their Roblox experience.”
Roblox Kids accounts will limit access to games with a Minimal or Mild content maturity label.
All communication is disabled by default. Roblox Select accounts will have access to games with content maturity labels up to and including Moderate. By default, Roblox Kids and Roblox Select accounts will not include games that feature sensitive issues, social hangouts, or free-form drawing games.
The company says it uses a three-step selection process to categorize games. The system factors in developer identity verification, real-time profiling and content maturity ratings. It also intends to transition to the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) framework for assigning content ratings. Baszucki says “these clear, region-specific ratings, such as ESRB in the U.S. and PEGI in much of Europe and the U.K., reflect local cultural norms and will help families identify age-appropriate content while further reinforcing our alignment with global safety standards and local regulations.”
Users will automatically upgrade from Roblox Kids to Roblox Select accounts when they reach age 9, and to standard accounts when they turn 16. Roblox will limit users who have not completed an age check to games rated Minimal or Mild and communication will be turned off by default.
The update also introduces new parental controls, which “transparently show parents which games their child is spending their time in and who their friends are.” Parents can approve access to specific games that are not otherwise available under the child’s default account type.
However, the company has also raised concerns that parents may be helping their kids bypass age checks. The Guardian reports that the firm discovered this while monitoring account behavior to detect signs that a user might have been younger than the age they appeared in facial age estimation.
“When we went and did the validation tests on that, you could see the kid in the background who handed the phone to their parent,” says Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief of safety.
Roblox is the new oxycontin: Kentucky AG
“When it comes to safety, we do the right thing, including proactive filtering, age checks, parental controls, and providing clear content ratings,” Baszucki says. “Because the well-being of our community is our highest priority.”
Nonetheless, Roblox continues to serve as a hunting ground for child predators. In a recent interview with Russell Coleman, attorney general for Kentucky – which is also suing Roblox – compared the risks to those presented by opioids.
“This and the social media platforms, Roblox being one of those, it is the opioid fight of my time in office.” Coleman says. “This, this is the threat now.”
Coleman previously referred to Roblox as “a playground for predators and international organizations with links to terrorist organizations to distribute child sexual abuse material.”
