Jenna McLaughlin
Jenna McLaughlin is NPR's cybersecurity correspondent, focusing on the intersection of national security and technology.
McLaughlin, who joined NPR in September 2021, aims to tell the human stories behind the hackers — taking listeners beyond the technical details and diving into the reasons why technology's vulnerabilities and the people who exploit them matter to both the individual and the world.
Before joining NPR, McLaughlin covered national security, intelligence and technology for a range of publications, including Mother Jones Magazine, The Intercept, Foreign Policy Magazine, CNN and Yahoo News.
For example, in 2016, she uncovered startling details concerning a wave of former U.S. intelligence officials performing offensive cyber and other intelligence activities for the U.A.E. government, several of whom in 2021 brokered a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department. In 2018, McLaughlin was part of a team that exposed how a flaw in a CIA covert communication tool led to the imprisonment and death of CIA human sources in China and Iran.
In addition to serious national security stories, McLaughlin has interviewed high school debate teams on their views about privacy and surveillance in the wake of NSA contractor Edward Snowden's disclosures in 2013, toured the NSA's Hawaii outpost on the North Shore of Oahu beneath the pineapple fields, and sampled a meal made with Blackwater Beef, an attempt made by infamous military contractor Erik Prince to rebrand into the food industry in rural Virginia.
McLaughlin's work has earned her national recognition, including the Gerald R. Ford Award for Reporting on the National Defense in 2019 and a finalist nomination in 2020 for the University of Michigan's Livingston Awards honoring the best journalists under the age of 35.
Her reporting has taken her from Abu Dhabi to Estonia, and she hopes to regularly travel outside Washington in her role at NPR.
McLaughlin in based in Washington and has appeared as an analyst on MSNBC and CBSN, in addition to frequently moderating expert panels. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars Program, where she was a sea kayaking instructor and Wilderness First Responder.
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The large cache of more than 500 documents posted online anonymously last week details one Chinese tech company's hacking operations, target lists and marketing materials for the Chinese government. -
Russia and Ukraine are fighting a war on multiple fronts, including in cyberspace. A secretive Ukrainian hacktivist group says it is carrying out cyber missions against Russia. -
Illia Vitiuk is a top Ukrainian intelligence official. For him, the war with Russia is primarily in cyberspace — and in a rare exclusive interview with NPR, he says it's far from over. -
Ukrainian officials say Russian hackers remain focused on infiltrating military planning operations. That includes seizing and trying to crack tablets used on the on the front lines by officers. -
The U.S. government and Microsoft reveal Chinese hackers broke in to online email systems and stole some unclassified data. -
When hackers attack a hospital, it can be deadly. But doctors and patients at nearby hospitals suffer, too, according to a new study from the University of California San Diego. -
NPR has documented an alarming pattern of hoax school shooting calls across the country. Now another pattern has emerged: bad actors using these moments to spread misinformation online. -
Ukrainian officials say they have been fighting the first "hybrid war" in cyberspace and on the ground with Russia. Digital tools remain an important, if ambiguous, component of the conflict. -
The suspected Chinese spy balloon was noticed in Montana and slowly crossed the U.S. China expressed its "strong dissatisfaction and protest" over the downing. -
The prime minister says about 70 percent of services have been restored, but officials have not commented on a cause or whether ransom was paid. Nor did they respond to NPR's requests for comment.
