Yesterday, Epic launched the next season of Fortnite, and announced that for the following two weeks all the money it makes from in-game purchases in the popular battle royale will be donated to charities supporting humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Now, just 24 hours later, and with 13 days remaining, Epic has revealed that it has already raised an eye-popping $36 million.
In a blog posted yesterday on Epic’s official news page, the company announced its plans to donate proceeds from all “real-money” purchases made in Fortnite between March 20 through April 3. According to Epic, this includes the purchasing of V-Buck packs and cosmetic packs sold for real money. Epic says proceeds from retail in-store purchases of V-Buck cards will also be included, but only for those redeemed in-game during the two-week window. Xbox is also donating all proceeds made in the Xbox version of Fortnite for the next two weeks too.
What’s wild is that Epic also explained that it will be donating the funds it earns as quickly as it can and won’t be waiting for the “actual funds to come in from our platform and payment partners” as this process can take a long time. Instead, Epic will send the funds to the charities only days after the “transactions are reported.”
According to Epic, all the money earned will be donated to a selection of organizations, which includes Direct Relief, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the World Food Program. Epic says it will add more charities in the weeks to come.
The latest season of Fornite Chapter 3 went live yesterday, bringing in some big changes and new characters to the free-to-play online shooter. One of the biggest tweaks was the removal of building, one of the game’s now-defining features, from some modes of online play. There are also some new parkour features and Dr. Strange from Marvel is hanging out here alongside Jonesy, that weird cat man, and God’s ultimate sin: Peely.
Rihanna — who is pregnant and expecting her first child with boyfriend A$AP Rocky — donned a huge diamond ring on that finger while shopping for baby clothes at Kitson in Los Angeles on Monday.
In addition to her sparkling accessory — a Sloan Solitaire ring from Briony Raymond — the Fenty Beauty mogul, 34, wore a fitted Grave Digger T-shirt that just fit over her growing baby bump.
Rihanna also rocked a pair of low-rise jeans, furry stilettos and a maroon-and-yellow trucker hat that notably read, “Sex is safer than smoking.”
The Fenty Beauty mogul wore the sparkler with a relatively casual outfit. BACKGRIDHere is a closer look at Rihanna’s Sloan Solitaire ring designed by Briony Raymond.
Rihanna, a noted fan of the “Real Housewives” franchise, also spoke about the Bravo moms she admires.
“Heather Dubrow is so chic while being a mom. Just love the way that she just allows her kids to be who they are. And that’s really inspiring to me,” Rihanna explained.
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky announced that they were going to be parents in January. Getty Images
She continued, “But Teresa [Giudice] from ‘Jersey’ does not play about her kids. She will flatten you about those kids. And that resonates with me a lot.”
Though Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, 33, have yet to announce an engagement, the “Umbrella” singer told Kanye West in a 2010 feature for Interview magazine that she always dreamed of raising a family with a spouse by her side.
The singer recently joked to Elle that she is going to be a “psycho” mother once her bundle of joy arrives. Getty Images for Fenty Beauty by
“I definitely think a child deserves both parents. It would be selfish of me, because of my pride and independence to say, ‘Oh, I just want a sperm donor, because I can do it myself,’” the Barbados native said at the time.
“I can do it myself, but that’s not fair. I don’t know if I’ll be married or anything. But however the father is in the child’s life, he’s going to be in the child’s entire life.”
A$AP Rocky and Rihanna went public with their romance in November 2020. Getty Images for Gucci
Rihanna added that she’d be able to “handle” any situation that came her way, “but in a perfect book, there would be marriage and kids.”
Rihanna revealed her pregnancy in January with paparazzi pics of her and A$AP Rocky taking a stroll in Harlem. She and the “Praise the Lord” MC have been dating since early 2020. They went public with their romance in November of that same year.
The latest addition of 65 exoplanets to the NASA Exoplanet Archive contributed to the scientific milestone marked on Monday. This archive is the home to exoplanet discoveries from peer-reviewed scientific papers that have been confirmed using multiple methods of detecting the planets.
“It’s not just a number,” said Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in a statement. “Each one of them is a new world, a brand-new planet. I get excited about every one because we don’t know anything about them.”
We’re currently living in a golden age of exoplanet discovery. Although the existence of planets outside of our solar system had been previously proposed and certainly depicted in science fiction, these worlds were only first discovered in the 1990s.
The diversity of exoplanets represent populations of planets unlike anything found in our solar system. They include rocky worlds larger than Earth called super-Earths, mini-Neptunes bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and scorching hot Jupiters that dwarf our solar system’s largest planet and closely orbit their host stars.
Scientists have also found planets that orbit more than one star and even some around the remnants of dead stars called white dwarfs.
So far, of the confirmed exoplanets, 30% are gas giants, 31% are super-Earths, and 35% are Neptune-like. Just 4% are terrestrial, or rocky planets like Earth or Mars.
When Christiansen was a graduate student in the early 2000s, there were only about 100 known exoplanets.
“That’s partly why I wanted to go into the field — because it was brand new and so exciting that people were finding planets around other stars,” Christiansen said in a question and answer session shared by Caltech. “Now, exoplanets are almost ordinary. My colleague David Ciardi (chief scientist for the NASA Exoplanet Archive) pointed out the other day that half of the people alive have never lived in a world where we didn’t know about exoplanets.”
Kepler helped scientists discover about two-thirds of the 5,000 confirmed planets, Christiansen said.
In the new batch of 65 planets, many are super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets, along with some hot Jupiter-size planets. There are also two Earth-size planets, but they’re about 620 degrees Fahrenheit (327 degrees Celsius), so more like “hot rocks” than habitable planets, Christiansen said.
She also noted that one is a system with five planets orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star — not unlike the TRAPPIST-1 system, where a similar star hosts seven rocky planets.
Space observatories joining the hunt
New telescopes will only increase the potential for exoplanet discovery. The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in December, will be able to peer through the atmospheres of exoplanets.
The Webb telescope is poised to study the TRAPPIST system in detail.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch in 2027 and aid in the search for exoplanets with a variety of techniques. The European Space Agency’s ARIEL mission, launching in 2029, will study exoplanet atmospheres.
Although scientists have confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets, there are likely hundreds of billions of them across the Milky Way galaxy.
“Of the 5,000 exoplanets known, 4,900 are located within a few thousand light-years of us, Christiansen said. “And think about the fact that we’re 30,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy; if you extrapolate from the little bubble around us, that means there are many more planets in our galaxy we haven’t found yet, as many as 100 to 200 billion. It’s mind-blowing.”
Next week, the late U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, will lie in state in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday — an honor accorded to fewer than 50 people in U.S. history. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
Alaska politicians, election officials and congressional staffers scrambled Monday to adapt to one of the biggest shifts in the state’s political landscape in a half-century: the death of GOP U.S. Rep. Don Young.
Young, who was 88, was Alaska’s sole member of Congress for 49 years. And his unexpected death Friday raised a tangle of questions that will start to be answered this week.
Among them: How long will it take before Young is replaced? Who will ensure Alaska’s interests are represented in Congress in the mean time? And who will enter the races to fill the seat — both temporarily and for the next two-year term?
“Anyone worth their salt is doing scenario planning right now, figuring out who’s in and what that means,” said Chris Constant, a Democrat who launched his U.S. House campaign last month.
Don Young in his Washington, D.C. office, on June 25, 2015. (Marc Lester / ADN)
In interviews Monday, many Alaska politicians and political observers said they’re being cautious about discussing the race to replace Young too quickly, and they added that the focus in the coming days should be on the Congressman’s legacy.
But behind the scenes, phones were ringing off the hook. And Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration was rushing to sort out how it would pull off the herculean task of organizing three elections, using a new voting system, within the next five months: a special and regular primary, and a special general.
Representatives from campaigns, interest groups and political parties said they’re planning intense efforts to educate voters about the new elections system, which includes two elements untested in Alaska: a nonpartisan, top-four primary and a general election that uses a process called ranked-choice voting.
“I think there’s massive confusion out there about what is about to take place,” said Lindsay Kavanaugh, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party. “And that is absolutely on our minds.”
State elections officials declined requests for interviews and details about their plans Monday.
But Gov. Mike Dunleavy and other officials outlined a preliminary schedule on a Sunday conference call with legislators, according to multiple participants.
Under the tentative plan, the special primary election will be June 11, and the special general election will take place Aug. 16 — the same date as the state’s regular primary election.
The winner of the special general election could be seated in Congress by early September, though the dates and timelines could change before Dunleavy’s official announcement, which is expected Tuesday.
Because of the short timeframe to organize and hold the special primary in June, the Division of Elections plans to conduct a by-mail election, which state law allows in special votes. Every registered Alaska voter would be mailed a ballot — a similar process to the one used by Anchorage for its local elections.
Residents could still vote in person at a select number of locations, and mail-in voters will be required to sign their ballots in the presence of a witness who must also sign it.
Republican legislators have echoed former President Donald Trump’s unproven claims about a lack of integrity in mail-in ballots. But one GOP legislative leader said she’s partially satisfied by the signature requirement and in-person voting locations.
“I think that will garner some comfort,” said House Minority Leader Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla. “But I think that there’s still going to be some consternation around doing a statewide mail-in ballot.”
She added: “I want to feel comfortable with it, but I can’t give you a 100% answer that I would.”
Bracing for a bevy of candidates
Christopher Constant, the vice chair of the Anchorage Assembly, is a Democrat running for U.S. House. (Bill Roth / ADN)
In interviews, Constant and Nick Begich III, a Republican who announced his candidacy months ago, both said they plan to enter the upcoming special election, rather than focusing solely on the previously scheduled August primary and November general.
“Things certainly are accelerating,” Begich said in a phone interview Monday. “But we were already running close to full speed as it was.”
The field of U.S. House candidates, which also includes independent Gregg Brelsford, seemed mostly set through last week, though the official filing deadline is not until June 1.
Nick Begich III is a Republican running for U.S. House. Begich’s grandfather, Nick Begich, once held the seat before disappearing on a small plane flight in 1972, and U.S. Rep. Don Young replaced him until his death last week. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
Now, political observers say to brace for a bevy of new hopefuls in both the special elections and the regular ones.
“It’s a 60-day sprint, and I think there’s going to be 20 candidates,” said Jim Lottsfeldt, a centrist political consultant and lobbyist.
Lottsfeldt said he’s already spoken with three or four people who will run for the seat held by Young, who began contacting him within “about 30 seconds” of the news of the Congressman’s death becoming public. Candidates likely won’t announce their plans for another few days out of respect for Young, he added.
“It’s a little bit like revving your motor at the intersection,” Lottsfeldt said. “Once someone announces, they’re all going to follow suit, because they’re not going to let that person have the news cycle all by themselves.”
Previously declared candidates have a head start in setting up campaign infrastructure, and Begich supporters note that, as an entrepreneur with millions of dollars in assets, he’ll likely have a fundraising advantage.
In the phone interview, Begich also cited endorsements that came in from GOP groups over the weekend, after Young’s death.
“The Republicans across the state are unifying around this campaign, recognizing the importance of moving quickly,” he said.
Asked about his plans, Gross said in a text message Monday that he would “be in touch.” A source who has spoken with Gross said he intends to enter the race, and Gross’ former U.S Senate campaign website went dark Monday.
Al Gross, pictured during his 2020 U.S. Senate campaign in Palmer, will run for U.S. House, a source who’s spoken to him said Monday. (Bill Roth / ADN)
Others said they’re considering their options or that it’s too soon after Young’s death to make an announcement.
Meda DeWitt, a Tlingit traditional healer who helped lead the defunct campaign to recall Dunleavy, said she received several calls Monday morning from people wondering if, or hoping, she would run for U.S. House. She described that interest as a reflection of some Alaskans’ desires to see Young replaced by a Native woman.
“It’s not off the table,” DeWitt said of her own candidacy. “It’s a long time coming, having representation that is equitable.”
Former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin, in an appearance on conservative network NewsMax, also did not rule out seeking to fill the seat, saying that “we’ll see how this process is going to go” and that replacing Young “would be an honor.”
Two two co-chairs of Young’s re-election campaign, who have both been suggested as potential candidates, said Monday that their focus is elsewhere.
“Any discussions formally about who succeeds Don Young is premature at this point, and opportunistic,” said Tara Sweeney, an Iñupiaq woman who’s worked at high-level positions at the Interior Department and Arctic Slope Regional Corp. She added: “I need time to process his loss, and I think his family needs time to process and grieve.”
The other co-chair, Anchorage Republican state Sen. Josh Revak, said he had a “broken-hearted weekend” and that he’s trying to prioritize Young’s wife and legacy.
“This is very new, and my focus is on his wishes and the wishes of his family, in terms of his legacy and in terms of honoring him,” said Revak, who once worked as an aide to Young. “We’ll think about other stuff later.”
The greatest bird
As focus in Alaska began turning over the weekend to the process of replacing Young, the former Congressman’s body was flown from Seattle to Washington, D.C., in an Alaska Airlines jet.
With Young’s widow, Anne Garland Walton, watching alongside former staffers, his flag-draped casket was unloaded and taken to a funeral home, Alaska’s News Source reported.
Next week, Young will lie in state in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday — an honor accorded to fewer than 50 people in U.S. history.
Young’s Congressional staff, meanwhile, continues to report to work under the House Clerk as the “Office of Alaska At-Large.”
“Our phones remain on, and we continue to serve Alaskans with casework needs,” Zack Brown, Young’s former spokesman and a current Alaska at-large staff member, said in a statement Monday. “Although the office cannot take a position on legislation, we are available for Alaskans who want to share their views or who may have questions on bills before Congress. In the coming days, our office will share the full list of services available from our staff.”
In a press release Monday that passed along Pelosi’s announcement, Brown replaced the office’s former letterhead, which had an image of the northern lights. The new one is an image of a lone raven — a reference to Young’s belief that he would be reincarnated as, in his words, “the greatest bird that ever was created by God.”
“I’m going to come back as a raven,” he said in an interview last year, “and see how well we did.”
The company announced Monday it will replace Davidson with its chief architect of its suborbital rocket, Gary Lai.
Davidson, who has become a pillar of entertainment intrigue amid his relationship with Kim Kardashian and feud with Kanye West, had been slated to fly as an invited guest alongside five paying customers aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. But when Blue Origin announced last week that it had to delay that flight — from March 23 to March 29 — for additional ground tests on the rocket, the company also announced Davidson could no longer join the mission.
Lai, who has been with Blue origin for 18 years and holds several patents related to the New Shepard rocket’s design, will fly alongside five previously announced paying customers. They include Marty Allen, an investor and the former CEO of a party supply store; Jim Kitchen, an entrepreneur and business professor; George Nield, a former associate administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space Transportation; Marc Hagle, an Orlando real estate developer and his wife, Sharon Hagle, who founded a space-focused nonprofit.
After years of quiet development, Blue Origin’s space tourism rocket made its crewed launch debut last year with Bezos, flying alongside a heroine of the space community, Wally Funk, as well as his brother Mark Bezos and a paying customer.
Since then, Blue Origin has been making headlines for flying other well-known names on two subsequent flights, including Star Trek star William Shatner and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan.
Blue Origin’s goal is to make these suborbital spaceflights a mainstay of pop culture, giving a 10-minute supersonic joyride to invited guests — which thus far have mostly been celebrities — and anyone else who can afford it.
The crew change-up with Lai and Davidson isn’t the first. Last year, the company held an auction for one ticket to fly alongside Bezos, and the as-yet-unnamed winner of that auction agreed to shell out a staggering $28 million for the seat. But then the winner opted out, choosing to fly on a later mission, and a runner-up in the auction, a Dutch investor, passed the ticket on to his 18-year-old son, Oliver Daemen.
Before this month’s flight, the Blue Origin passengers will spend a few days training at Blue Origin’s facilities in West Texas before the flight day, when they’ll climb into the New Shepard crew capsule that sits atop the rocket. After liftoff, the rocket will tear past the speed of sound, and near the top of its flight path, will detach from the capsule. As the rocket booster heads back toward the Earth for an upright landing, the crewed capsule will continue soaring higher into the atmosphere to more than 60 miles above the surface where the blackness of space is visible and the capsule’s windows will offer sweeping views of the Earth.
As the flight reaches its apex, the passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Bezos notably spent his time in weightlessness throwing Skittles and flipping around in the cabin. Others have been glued to the window.
As gravity begins to pull the capsule back toward the ground, the passengers will again experience intense G-forces before sets of parachutes are deployed to slow the vehicle down. It will then touch down at less than 20 miles per hour in the Texas desert.
Because the flights are suborbital — meaning the don’t generate enough speed or take the right trajectory to avoid being immediately dragged back down by Earth’s gravity — the whole trip will last only about 10 minutes.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Gary Lai’s name.
MEDYKA, Poland (AP) — Yulia Bondarieva spent 10 days in a basement as Russian planes flew over and bombs were falling on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Having reached safety in Poland, Bondarieva’s only wish now is for her twin sister in the besieged city of Mariupol to get out, too.
“They have been in the basement since Feb. 24, they have not been out at all,” Bondarieva said. “They are running out of food and water.”
Bondarieva managed to speak to her sister on the phone recently. The fear of what will happen to her in the encircled and bombed-out city that is going through some of the worst fighting in the war has been overwhelming.
“She does not know how to leave the city,” the 24-year-old said after arriving in the Polish border town of Medyka.
Mariupol authorities have said only about 10% of the city’s population of 430,000 has managed to flee over the past week. The Mariupol City Council has asserted that several thousand residents were taken into Russia against their will.
Bondarieva said her sister told her of “Russian soldiers walking around the city” in Mariupol, and people not being allowed out.
“Civilians cannot leave,” she said. “They don’t give them anything.”
Maria Fiodorova, a 77-year-old refugee from Mariupol who arrived Monday in Medyka, said 90% of the city has been destroyed. “There are no buildings there (in Mairupol) any more,” she said.
For Maryna Galla, just listening to birds singing as she arrived in Poland was blissful after the sound of shelling and death in Mariupol. Galla took a stroll in the park in Przemysl with her 13-year-old son Danil. She hopes to reach Germany next.
“It’s finally getting better,” Galla said.
The United Nations says nearly 3.5 million people have left Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, the largest exodus of refugees in Europe since World War II.
Valentina Ketchena arrived by train at Przemsyl on Monday. She never thought that at the age of 70 she would be forced to leave her home in Kriviy Rig, and see the town in southern Ukraine almost deserted as people flee the Russian invasion for safety.
Kriviy Rig is now “half empty,” said Ketchena. She will stay now with friends in Poland, hoping to return home soon. “It (is a) very difficult time for everyone.”
Zoryana Maksimovich is from the western city of Lviv, near the Polish border. Though the city has seen less destruction than others, Maksimovich said her children are frightened and cried every night when they had to go to the basement for protection.
”I told my children that we are going to visit friends,” the 40-year-old said. “They don’t understand clearly what is going on but in a few days they are going to ask me about where their father is.”
Like most refugees, Maksimovich had to flee without her husband — men aged 18 to 60 are forbidden from leaving the country and have stayed to fight. “I don’t know how I will explain,” she said.
Once in Poland, refugees can apply for a local ID number that enables them to work and access health, social and other services. Irina Cherkas, 31, from the Poltava region, said she was afraid her children could be targeted in Russian attacks.
“For our children’s safety we decided to leave Ukraine,” she said. “When the war ends we will go back home immediately.”
Poland has taken in most of the Ukrainian refugees, more than 2 million so far. On Sunday evening, Ukrainian artists joined their Polish hosts in a charity event that raised more than $380,000.
The star of the evening was a 7-year-old Ukrainian girl, whose video singing a song from the movie “Frozen” in a Kyiv bomb shelter has gone viral and drawn international sympathy.
Wearing a white, embroidered folk dress, Amellia Anisovych, who escaped to Poland with her grandmother and brother, sang the Ukrainian anthem in a clear, sweet voice as thousands of people in the audience waved their cellphone lights in response.
Keyton reported from Przemsyl, Poland.
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The Los Angeles Rams wanted a contract extension with quarterback Matthew Stafford for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that in his first year with the team, he led the franchise to a victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.
They didn’t have to work hard to persuade Stafford, who might have wanted the new contract as much as — if not more than — the Rams. He indicated on Monday his experience with the Rams was everything he hoped for, particularly in light of his 12 difficult seasons with the Detroit Lions.
“I just had so much fun playing for this team this year, playing for this organization, this coaching staff, and I wanted to make sure I was able to do this for a long time,” said Stafford, who recently agreed to the four-year extension worth $160 million with $135 guaranteed, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
“I obviously wanted to say thanks to the Rams for giving me that opportunity. It was a lot of hard work getting to this point. I’m just happy where we are and to know what the future looks like for me and for our team. It’s an exciting thing as a player to kind of know where you are going to be and be able to put some roots down and really go try to make something really special for a while.
“I was just trying to find something that felt good for both sides where we are able to continue to add players and pieces around me.”
The Rams also recently signed free agent Allen Robinson II from the Chicago Bears to join a wide receiving group that includes Cooper Kupp and Van Jefferson. Robinson is well known for making difficult catches in tight coverage.
“Some of the areas that becomes such an advantage is probably down in the red zone,” Stafford said. “There’s just less field for defenders to defend. Therefore, it’s a little bit easier to cover guys. His ability to go up and make catches over guys, around guys, whatever it is, is really special. I’ve seen it up close and personal.
“At the same time, for a guy of his size, I think he does a great job of separating, too. There are quite a few times where he’s doing a great job whether it’s at the line of scrimmage or whether it’s at the top of his route transitioning and doing a great job of creating space for the quarterback as well. I think you get the best of both worlds when it comes to that with him. I’m eager to get out there and get to work with him and see what it’s like throwing to him.”
Robinson said he was eager to play with Stafford as well.
“Just kind of watching Matt’s career from afar, seeing all of the receivers he’s played with and being able to see everything he’s been able to help his receivers accomplish … being able to kind of step into that and being able to build that rapport and that relationship, that’s what I’m looking forward to,” he said.
Kupp had one of the best statistical seasons ever by a wide receiver in 2021 with 145 catches, 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns. He then had another 33 receptions and six TDs in four playoff games, including two scores in the Super Bowl.
Robinson had a down season last year but is one year removed from a 102-catch, 1,250-yard season. Stafford was asked whether the Rams have the NFL’s best wide receiving group.
“It looks pretty good on paper,” he said. “It’s on us to go out there and make sure that comes to life … We’ve got to go out there and prove it.”
For months, Jaylin Scott had picked at her armpits. She would dig at her skin any time of the day — even in her sleep — until it bled and burned. These episodes would make her scream and cry in pain, drained by the compulsion to level out her skin.
“In my mind I’m screaming at myself to stop picking, stop picking, but I just couldn’t,” Scott said. “I had to have someone physically pull my arm away.”
The dry heat where she worked as a lifeguard in Las Vegas was intense, but she couldn’t wear deodorant because picking made her skin raw, so she constantly worried about body odor, too.
“It felt really shameful,” Scott said. “I became disgusted with myself.”
Then she found videos on TikTok about people struggling with the same thing, which made her feel seen. That was the first time she’d heard about skin picking disorder, a mental illness related to obsessive compulsive disorder that involves repeatedly picking at skin on the body, resulting in emotional and physical damage.
About six months ago, a dermatologist finally diagnosed her with the condition and prescribed an ointment called triamcinolone acetonide. The medication healed the scabs that formed in her armpits, which helped Scott avoid the urge to pick at her skin, a feeling many with the condition experience due to emotional and physical factors.
Receiving a diagnosis helped her immensely; now Scott is in recovery and has joined the many people with the illness who have posted about their journey on TikTok.
“Beyond proud of myself,” Scott wrote in a TikTok caption in August 2021. “I’ve kept this a secret for a long time and i feel it’s time to share my journey so others don’t feel alone!”
BuzzFeed News; Getty Images
Why people pick their skin
Skin picking disorder affects as many as 1 in 20 people and is a form of self-soothing to handle emotional distress. It was informally called dermatillomania (a term still commonly used) or compulsive skin picking until 2013, when it was classified as excoriation disorder by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
Research on the disorder is in its “infancy,” but awareness around the illness has grown, especially in the past five years, according to Karen Pickett, a licensed psychotherapist in California who has researched the condition for 20 years.
The disorder goes far beyond popping pimples or removing dry skin. It can cause conspicuous lesions on the body. People with the disorder often miss out on normal life or suffer emotional distress because of the compulsion.
Pickett said that someone with the disorder can simultaneously want to stop and seek the satisfaction of checking the skin for areas to work at. The behavior sets off synapses that produce dopamine and endorphin hits in the brain.
“Skin pickers can talk about the ‘reward’ as a feeling of accomplishment or relief or a way to self-soothe,” Pickett said.
According to Lauren McKeaney, CEO and founder of the Chicago-based Picking Me Foundation, triggers depend on the person but can be anything from a stressful day to a comment about your appearance.
The primary kinds of skin picking are scanning, a process of unconsciously searching the skin for something to smooth out, or focused picking, honing in on a perceived imperfection for an extended period of time before “coming to” and realizing what damage has been done, McKeaney said. She likened skin picking to an unavoidable “signal” from the body about an emotional state; to find a solution to picking, it’s important to recognize the emotion behind the behavior, she said.
Based on research about closely related disorders, Pickett said that about 80% of people with skin picking disorders have other psychological conditions, such as depression, because of its emotional regulation component.
Lauren Brown, 26, said she thinks her family’s history of addiction and depression, and her own “addictive personality,” set her up to potentially have dermatillomania.
For her, skin picking was a normal habit exacerbated to dangerous levels by a change in her environment. Brown, who wrote a memoir about anxiety and skin picking called Hands, said the behavior gave her solace after she moved to a new city and felt lonely. After a while, she couldn’t resist looking at herself in the mirror for extended periods of time, picking at her skin, and savoring the reward of clearing perceived irregularities. It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t have the disorder, she said, but she felt a sense of “achievement.”
“You think, It’s just a habit and I can stop whenever I want,” Brown said, adding that skin picking can be motivated by a sense of wanting to improve skin or a desire to release a feeling. For her, she wanted to get away from negative feelings about her new life. After picking, the emotions would briefly go away, but then she’d be jolted back into reality.
“You go into this mindless state of almost enjoyment. … You all of a sudden wake up to realize time has passed — that can be a shocking moment,” she said.
“Skin picking can actually help a person soothe themselves through uncomfortable thoughts and feelings,” Pickett said, adding that skin picking is a common way for someone to deal with difficult emotions if they are already in recovery from another mental illness. One emotional regulator replaces another.
Courtesy of Lauren Brown and Jaylin Scott
Left: Lauren Brown; right: Jaylin Scott
For McKeaney, it was a way to pacify herself any time she felt too anxious or excited. “It really developed into a repetitive ingrained behavior I used to regulate stimuli,” she said. The disorder affected many of her childhood experiences; she quit figure skating, a sport she loved, because the healing scabs on her legs made it difficult to pull her tights off. She couldn’t stay the night at a friend’s house out of fear she’d have a picking episode; her parents only allowed her to have black bedsheets because they masked the little blood marks she’d leave in her sleep.
A lot of what is known about skin picking disorder is based on research on the closely related trichotillomania, or hair pulling disorder, which is also a body-focused repetitive behavior, Pickett said. People may pull their hair or pick at their skin for similar emotional reasons, or even do both things, so scientists study the disorders closely.
One 2006 study concerning trichotillomania concluded that two mutations in the SLITRK1 gene were linked to hair-pulling disorder. Given the similarities of hair pulling and skin picking disorders, Pickett said it’s possible to assume that a genetic marker may cause skin picking disorder, too, although she said no research has pinpointed one yet.
Pickett said she works with parents with skin picking disorder who fear “giving” it to their children.
Simone Kolysh, 38, a sociologist based in Maryland, has noticed their 15-year-old son is scratching on his shoulders and arms, the same areas they do. They point it out to him and provide a fidget toy to replace the urge to pick, without trying to make a big deal about it.
“I’m a lot kinder to my kids than I am to myself,” said Kolysh, who has four children and said seeing their child picking at his skin has made them feel ashamed and blame themself for his behavior.
BuzzFeed News; Getty Images
How the pandemic raised awareness of skin picking disorder
The pandemic was a pressure cooker for many people with skin picking disorder, Pickett, the psychotherapist, said. Some people with dermatillomania who spoke with BuzzFeed News said the pandemic exacerbated their anxiety and depression, leading them to double down on their behaviors in search of some form of relief. Lockdown meant there was also a reduced likelihood of other people seeing their skin.
McKeaney of the Picking Me Foundation said she began picking her skin when she was 5 years old. Her body is covered in scars from sores she created as a child “anywhere [her] hands could reach,” she told BuzzFeed News.
Now 35 and in recovery, McKeaney said the pandemic was triggering; suddenly the CDC was saying “Don’t touch your face,” something her parents used to say to stop her picking. But more time in front of the mirror also meant new opportunities for self-reflection, she said, and she has also noticed a major uptick during the pandemic of people seeking support from the organization.
As people were isolated and experienced uncertainty during the pandemic, interest in understanding these symptoms increased: Google Trends shows a growth in queries in the US for “dermatillomania” and “skin picking” after spring 2020.
Now an otherwise little-known community is speaking up: Advocacy organizations, bots, apps, TikTokers, and Instagram accounts are spreading awareness about the disorder, debunking myths, sharing personal experiences, and offering support and resources.
Courtesy of Aaron Jeanfrancois
Aaron Jeanfrancois shared his skin picking recovery on TikTok to spread awareness of the disorder.
Aaron Jeanfrancois hasn’t picked the skin on his palms since June 27, 2020. The 18-year-old first-year student at Brooklyn College, who is autistic, started creating lesions on their hands around the age of 5 as a form of stimming, a term that refers to self-calming behaviors. He couldn’t stop, sometimes targeting the area for 30 minutes at a time. Embarrassed by the look of their palms, which became red and raw from the picking, Jeanfrancois avoided giving high fives or would position his hand so only the top was visible.
But in the first summer of the pandemic, Jeanfrancois decided to make a change. His mother had told him that when she was younger, she had picked her skin too, and her recovery motivated him to try to stop. By focusing on other actions such as meditating, playing video games, or exercising, Jeanfrancois has been able to fill the gap. They have since posted about his disorder on TikTok, sharing how he stopped picking and achieved significant recovery milestones.
Why it can often take years to get a diagnosis
For decades, medical professionals failed to find a solution for McKeaney or even diagnose her condition. Dermatologists and psychiatrists said she had eczema or psoriasis, not a mental illness.
McKeaney was finally able to identify her disorder in 2014 when an area she picked on her upper right thigh became infected. She was in severe pain and felt ashamed her disorder had progressed so much. Doctors had discussed with her the possibility of amputating her leg because the bacteria were resistant to several antibiotics, but then a young nurse in the room saw her skin and said, “It looks like dermatillomania.”
“Having a term for this disorder, I felt armed,” McKeaney said. “It felt so awesome to have something to share.”
Courtesy of Lauren McKeaney
Lauren McKeaney, who runs a skin picking advocacy organization in Chicago
Jennifer Hollander, a nurse practitioner at the Beverly Hills Center for Plastic & Laser Surgery, helps hundreds of patients nationally with cosmetic skin concerns and said people rarely know they have skin picking disorder when they come to her.
“I would say it’s underreported because there’s a lot of shame around it,” Hollander said, adding she’s seen an “uptick” in patients with skin picking disorder and is treating them “now more than ever.” But she focuses on having a conversation with patients about how common the condition is.
Hollander said it can be difficult to tell if a patient has skin picking disorder or another skin condition, such as acne, because picking creates “secondary” wounds on top of those caused by other conditions. Because medical research into the disorder is lacking, she said, she’s glad to be able to connect patients with support groups or share her expertise on social media.
Talking about the condition, both with their family and online, has helped a lot, said Kolysh. “Once I started posting pictures of it and just talking about it in general, I got a bit more of a handle on it,” they said. “I became more in control of the behavior because I brought it into my conscious sphere out of my subconscious.”
“Talking about it and sharing photos of my skin and not blurring it out or editing it helped normalize it,” they added.
Many of the people who are publicly sharing their experiences with skin picking disorder are white women like herself, said Pickett, the psychotherapist. One reason for this is that white women are more likely to seek out therapy in the US than other groups. Another is that while Black and other nonwhite groups may experience more emotional trauma than white people, there’s a gap in receiving a diagnosis or getting therapy, according to Mental Health America. (In 2018, over half of Black and African American adults with a serious mental illness did not receive treatment.)
Jeanfrancois, who is Black and bisexual, said he is inspired to spread awareness about skin picking disorder among people who are not white women. This is especially important, he said, because symptoms like bloody wounds show differently on nonwhite bodies.
Scott, who is Black, said the disorder resurfaced existing insecurities about her skin color. Before she started picking at her armpits, she said, she was already self-conscious about the area because of dark spots caused by shaving, something Black women experience due to higher melanin levels.
“White women are overrepresented in the research,” Pickett said. “Hopefully that will change with more awareness and acceptance.”
BuzzFeed News; Getty Images
What it’s like to have skin picking disorder
Skin picking disorder is complex because it feels good in the moment, but shame and remorse often follow.
Scarlett, 20, an online personal coach in Northamptonshire, England, is in recovery from depression and an eating disorder but has struggled with skin picking since she was 12. Skin picking served as a way for her to avoid self-harm caused by depression or deal with emotions she had after eating.
Scarlett (who did not want her last name mentioned for privacy reasons) said people should avoid saying “stop picking your skin” or “your skin is looking better” to those with the disorder.
“[If] someone [mentions] anything to do with my skin … I end up just making it worse,” she said, adding that comments like these fail to address the root of the behavior, and sometimes compel her to focus even more on her face. “It’s just understanding that it’s difficult to not do it.”
Pickett added, “Shame is a huge part of skin picking disorder largely because of lack of information. It’s not their fault.”
“That’s the inner conflict — I want to skin pick and I want to stop,” Pickett said. When she treats people, she talks about the behavior, its “addictive quality,” the emotional regulation needed to calm her brain, how to stop, and finding other techniques for dealing with thoughts and feelings.
Pickett said it’s not clear to researchers how the brain is able to basically zone out, but self-reported data shows that it can be a form of the mind soothing itself.
She said that the disorder is a pendulum of reward and shame: “You feel bad about yourself, and it precipitates all these emotions, which you then deal with via the behavior. … Breaking that cycle can be quite difficult.”
Kim Mills, a 29-year-old creator who posts on TikTok and Instagram as Kim on Skin, bit her nails as a child, and after puberty that evolved into skin picking. The disorder was a “cage,” she said, and she got frustrated that she wasn’t growing out of it. She’d give herself goals — once she got a boyfriend or her first apartment, she would stop picking — but the end never came.
It was isolating. “I felt like people around me only knew a certain side of me,” Mills said. “I felt like friends and family didn’t really know me.”
Mills now hosts Dermatillo-Diaries: The BFRB Podcast, posts content about common misconceptions and triggers, and promotes products like Nudge, a wristband device for skin pickers that vibrates and lights up whenever someone raises their hands to their face or head. (Mills said the Nudge device has been out of stock since the start of the pandemic, but the company declined BuzzFeed News’ request for comment on when it plans to restock.)
How to manage skin picking and get help
There’s no single way a doctor may approach treating someone for skin picking disorder. Awareness of the condition is still growing, and the solution is different for every person. Some medical providers may prescribe an ointment like Scott received, while others may send a patient to a therapist for a mental health evaluation. McKeaney of the Picking Me Foundation said she creates information packets to send to physicians — who are often the first point of contact with someone with dermatillomania — and a directory of informed medical providers.
Hollander, the nurse practitioner, gives patients the foundation’s “fiddle packs,” which include tools to keep the hands busy and deter someone from touching their body. She said she can’t speak for the whole medical community but noted that her nursing background gives her a “holistic” approach to skin picking disorder that focuses on the emotional factors behind a skin problem; she also refers patients with skin picking disorder to a therapist for cognitive behavioral therapy, which provides people with ways to approach specific behaviors in the moment.
Many skin pickers feel like they’re the only people doing it. But the Picking Me Foundation has run a virtual support group since March 2020 that has grown from three attendees to about 40 per meeting. The foundation now has over 800 members, and its email list has doubled in size since the start of the pandemic.
Mills said she had trouble finding useful forums or treatments on her own when she started her recovery three years ago, prompting her to make social media content as Kim on Skin to help others feel seen and learn more about skin picking disorder herself. She started her recovery by tracking her triggers, writing down when she was picking, how long the episodes were, and how these might be connected to other events that day. There’s even an app she used for this purpose called SkinPick, which provides a self-monitoring tool and a four-week course to help people understand and reduce their skin picking.
After gathering this data, Mills noticed that job stresses were often behind her picking, so she pivoted from a career in finance to one in social media. She now has a full-time job but hopes to eventually focus full time on Kim on Skin.
Mills reiterated how important it is to not downplay someone’s skin picking as only a habit. “Then they’re back to square one,” she said, “feeling embarrassed and even more alone.”
Investing time in recovery is also not something that may come naturally to people with dermatillomania, Mills said.
“A large majority are struggling with providing self-care,” she said. “Because of that, a big investment into themselves, that’s really hard for people to justify.”
Self-managed treatment depends on the person and their triggers. For McKeaney, avoiding mirrors is important. She splashes water on the sink in her bathroom so she won’t bring her face close to the mirror. She also leaves the lights off, keeps the door open, puts a tape boundary on the floor, uses acrylic nails (which are less sharp on skin), and wears pimple patches to hide areas she would be tempted to pick.
Scarlett, the personal coach in England, manages her picking by going on walks, keeping a stress ball in the bathroom, and covering up mirrors with towels. She spoke out on TikTok about skin picking and connects via DMs with others who do it, which makes her feel less alone. She said her skin picking has become less intense with each little change. In July 2020, she decided to enter a bodybuilding competition; knowing the event was coming up served as a reminder to hold back from skin picking.
Pickett’s advice for anyone who encounters a friend or relative with skin picking disorder is to cite the definition, treatment options, and other resources from the TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, and then ask them if they’ve heard of the disorder and if they think it might be something they have. This avoids any sense of blame or shame, as if they’ve done something they should be embarrassed about.
“For anyone who is struggling, I ask them to be as gentle with themselves,” McKeaney said. “This disorder already tears us apart and doesn’t deserve another minute of our time.” ●
This story is part of our Body Week series. To read more, click here.
KYIV, Ukraine—Russian attacks struck Kyiv, Odessa and other locations across Ukraine as Moscow appears to be shifting its battle plan to compel Ukraine to relinquish claims to its southern and eastern territory.
The seeming tactical shift comes as President Biden is heading to Europe this week for meetings with allies and partners in NATO, the G-7 and European states, including Poland. They are expected to discuss deterrence efforts, humanitarian relief and the campaign of sanctions against Russia.
Russia’s foreign ministry on Monday warned relations between Moscow and Washington were “on the verge of a rupture.” Moscow summoned U.S. Ambassador
John Sullivan
on Monday to hand him a note of protest over Mr. Biden’s comment that his Russian counterpart,
The Ukrainian government rejected Russia’s deadline to lay down weapons in Mariupol; a security camera captured the attack on a shopping center in Kyiv; the United Nations said the war has forced 10 million people to abandon homes. Photo: Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters
The State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia for its assault on Ukraine, helping cut the Russian economy off from the global financial system. The U.S. has also provided Ukraine a range of military assistance to battle Russian forces, including antitank weapons and antiaircraft missiles that Ukrainian forces have employed to exact a heavy toll on the invading military.
Near Kyiv, where fighting has settled into a stalemate, Russian forces appeared to degrade Ukrainian positions with artillery strikes and long-range missiles. On Monday, the rumble of artillery barrages was nearly constant.
Russian Strikes Take Their Toll on Ukraine’s Cities
Residential neighborhoods continue to face heavy shelling as casualties mount in the conflict’s fourth week
People stand in the rubble of a shopping center, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.
Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press
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People stand in the rubble of a shopping center, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.
Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press
Overnight, Russia destroyed a shopping mall that Moscow alleged was used as an arms depot. The strike gutted a 10-story building at the mall and shattered windows hundreds of yards away. Russia’s defense ministry on Monday released a video of the strike and evidence that it said showed Ukraine was using the facility to store arms and used the parking lot to launch missiles at Russian troops in the front lines near Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials said at least eight people died in the attack.
The military cordoned off the shopping mall, where troops could be seen Monday morning loading corpses into vans. A Ukrainian website said a photo of the mall had circulated on social media before the strike, showing several Ukrainian military trucks parked there. The government has been urging Ukrainians to refrain from circulating photos of the country’s military on social media that might betray their positions to Moscow.
The Russian attacks around military areas have prompted fears that the country has agents working inside Ukraine and spotting targets for Moscow.
The city’s mayor said he would impose another curfew on the Ukrainian capital, lasting 35 hours from 8 p.m. local time on Monday.
the head of the Defense Ministry’s National Defense Control Center, said Sunday that Kyiv had to respond to Russia’s offer by 5 a.m. Moscow time on Monday, according to Interfax.
Areas no longer controlled by Ukraine as of Friday
Direction of invasion forces
Controlled by or allied to Russia
Primary refugee crossing locations
Chernobyl
Not in operation
Ukraine territory, recognized by Putin as independent
Controlled by
separatists
Areas no longer controlled by Ukraine as of Friday
Direction of invasion forces
Controlled by or allied to Russia
Ukraine territory, recognized by Putin as independent
Primary refugee crossing locations
Chernobyl
Not in operation
Controlled by
separatists
Areas no longer controlled by Ukraine as of Friday
Direction of invasion forces
Controlled by or allied to Russia
Primary refugee crossing locations
Ukraine territory, recognized by Putin as independent
Chernobyl
Not in operation
Controlled by
separatists
Areas no longer controlled by Ukraine as of Friday
Direction of invasion forces
Controlled by or allied to Russia
Primary refugee crossing locations
Ukraine territory, recognized by Putin as independent
Areas no longer controlled by Ukraine as of Friday
Direction of invasion forces
Controlled by or allied to Russia
Primary refugee crossing locations
Ukraine territory, recognized by Putin as independent
The Ukrainian government early Monday rebuffed the Russian demand on Twitter. It cited the country’s Deputy Prime Minister
Iryna Vereshchuk
as saying that turning over the city wasn’t an option and her demanding that Russia give civilians safe passage to exit.
The bombardment strategy Russia is employing has inflicted a particularly heavy toll on Mariupol, where fighting has reached the streets. Ukrainian officials said an art school where around 400 people had been sheltering was bombed by Russia, trapping people beneath the rubble. Their condition couldn’t be determined. Days earlier, a theater in the city where large numbers of people had sheltered was bombed.
Mariupol is a strategic objective for Moscow as it attempts to open an overland corridor to the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula and shift the momentum in its three-week-old invasion. Russia has so far failed to take any big Ukrainian cities since the start of its invasion.
People dug a grave in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Sunday.
Photo:
ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS
Ukrainians who had fled Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia arrived in Lviv, in western Ukraine, on Sunday.
Photo:
Bernat Armangue/Associated Press
In areas that Moscow has seized, it is trying to quell unrest. On Monday, Russian troops wounded one protester and dispersed others with flash grenades and tear gas in the southern city of Kherson.
Russia’s military operation has been proceeding along three fronts: northward from the Crimean Peninsula, southward from Belarus toward Kyiv, and westward from occupied areas in Ukraine’s south toward Mykolaiv and, ultimately, the port city of Odessa.
Military analysts said Russia may be increasingly looking for an operational pause to regroup its forces and prepare for another offensive, leading to a temporary break in fighting short of a full cease-fire, which would require a breakthrough in so far fruitless negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, or further bombardment of urban areas.
“We’re likely to see a lot more destruction, and far less territory trading hands,” said Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at CNA Corp, adding that Russia is likely to continue targeting cities. “If Ukrainian forces are using urban areas for defense, and the urban environment favors the defender tremendously, what would be your strategy?”
The latest Russian ultimatum came as senior U.S. officials also voiced suspicions that the Kremlin is adopting a new strategy after almost a month of fighting with halting progress while inflicting a heavy humanitarian toll on the country. The new approach, they believe, focuses on securing a so-called land bridge between western Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, and expanding Russian control of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin also appears to be trying to force the Ukrainian government to accept neutrality between Russia and the West.
Ukrainian officials said at least eight people died in the attack on the Kyiv shopping mall.
Photo:
Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press
Russia’s assault on Ukraine has forced more than 10 million people to abandon their homes, the United Nations said, with the scale of the humanitarian disaster showing little sign of easing as Moscow presses its attack with missile strikes and artillery fire. The U.N. estimates roughly 3.5 million people have left Ukraine since the Russian offensive began Feb. 24.
The World Health Organization said the fighting is taking an ever greater toll on Ukraine’s healthcare system. The U.N. agency Monday said it had registered 14 deaths and 36 injuries in attacks on the healthcare system tied to the offensive. The nature of the attacks ranged from abductions to heavy weapons to obstruction of medical professionals, the WHO said.
Russia claimed on Monday to have seized a Ukrainian military command headquarters and taken 61 Ukrainian prisoners of war, and reported a cruise missile attack on an alleged training center for foreign and Ukrainian fighters in the Rivne region of western Ukraine, which it says killed more than 80 Ukrainian and foreign fighters.
Ukraine confirmed the missile attack on the training ground in the Rivne region, while saying the intensity of Russian combat air operations had eased. It also said Russia had shelled Odessa.
Ukrainian soldiers searched inside the destroyed shopping center in Kyiv on Monday.
Photo:
Felipe Dana/Associated Press
The two sides exchanged accusations for damage at a chemical plant in the city of Sumy in eastern Ukraine on Monday morning where an ammonia gas leak was detected.
The Ukrainian and Russian sides agreed on eight humanitarian corridors for Monday, including some for Mariupol, Ms. Vereshchuk said.
Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov
accused Ukraine of obstructing those corridors. Ukraine in the past has said Russia has attacked such lines of passage.
When we teach people how to avoid falling victim to phishing sites, we usually advise closely inspecting the address bar to make sure it does contain HTTPS and that it doesn’t contain suspicious domains such as google.evildomain.com or substitute letters such as g00gle.com. But what if someone found a way to phish passwords using a malicious site that didn’t contain these telltale signs?
One researcher has devised a technique to do just that. He calls it a BitB, short for “browser in the browser.” It uses a fake browser window inside a real browser window to spoof an OAuth page. Hundreds of thousands of sites use the OAuth protocol to let visitors login using their existing accounts with companies like Google, Facebook, or Apple. Instead of having to create an account on the new site, visitors can use an account that they already have—and the magic of OAuth does the rest.
Exploiting trust
The photo editing site Canva, for instance, gives visitors the option to login using any of three common accounts. The images below show what a user sees after clicking the “sign in” button; following that, the image show what appears after choosing to sign in with a Google password. After the user chooses Google, a new browser window with a legitimate address opens in front of the existing Canva window.
The OAuth protocol ensures that only Google receives the user password. Canva never sees the credentials. Instead, OAuth securely establishes a login session with Google and, when the username and password check out, Google provides the visitor with a token that gives access to Canva. (Something similar happens when a shopper chooses a payment method like PayPal.)
The BitB technique capitalizes on this scheme. Instead of opening a genuine second browser window that’s connected to the site facilitating the login or payment, BitB uses a series of HTML and cascading style sheets (CSS) tricks to convincingly spoof the second window. The URL that appears there can show a valid address, complete with a padlock and HTTPS prefix. The layout and behavior of the window appear identical to the real thing.
A researcher using the handle mr.d0x described the technique last week. His proof-of-concept exploit starts with a Web page showing a painstakingly accurate spoofing of Canva. In the event a visitor chooses to login using Apple, Google, or Facebook, the fake Canva page opens a new page that embeds what looks like the familiar-looking OAuth page.
This new page is also a spoof. It includes all the graphics a person would expect to see when using Google to login. The page also has the legitimate Google address displayed in what appears to be the address bar. The new window behaves much like a browser window would if connected to a real Google OAuth session.
If a potential victim opens the fake Canva.com page and tries to login with Google, “it will open a new browser window and go to [what appears to be] the URL accounts.google.com,” mr.d0x wrote in a message. In actuality, the fake Canva site “doesn’t open a new browser window. It makes it LOOK like a new browser window was opened but it’s only HTML/CSS. Now that fake window sets the URL to accounts.google.com, but that’s an illusion.”
Malvertisers: please don’t read this
A fellow security researcher was impressed enough by the demonstration to create a YouTube video that more vividly shows what the technique looks like. It also explains how the technique works and how easy it is to carry out.
Browser in the Browser (BITB) Phishing Technique – Created by mr.d0x
The BitB technique is simple and effective enough that it’s surprising it isn’t better known. After mr.d0x wrote about the technique, a small chorus of fellow researchers remarked how likely it would be for even more experienced Web users to fall for the trick. (mr.d0x has made proof of concept templates available here.)
“This browser-in-the-browser attack is perfect for phishing,” one developer wrote. “If you’re involved in malvertising, please don’t read this. We don’t want to give you ideas.”
“Ooh that’s nasty: Browser In The Browser (BITB) Attack, a new phishing technique that allows stealing credentials that even a web professional can’t detect,” another person said.
The technique has been actively used in the wild at least once before. As security firm Zscaler reported in 2020, scammers used a BitB attack in an attempt to steal credentials for video game distribution service Steam.
While the method is convincing, it has a few weaknesses that should give savvy visitors a foolproof way to detect that something is amiss. Genuine OAuth or payment windows are in fact separate browser instances that are distinct from the primary page. That means a user can resize them and move them anywhere on the monitor, including outside the primary window.
BitB windows, by contrast, aren’t a separate browser instance at all. Instead, they’re images rendered by custom HTML and CSS and contained in the primary window. That means the fake pages can’t be resized, fully maximized or dragged outside the primary window.
Unfortunately, as mr.d0x pointed out, these checks might be difficult to teach “because now we move away from the ‘check the URL’” advice that’s standard. “You’re teaching users to do something they never do.”
All users should protect their accounts with two-factor authentication. One other thing more experienced users can do is right click on the popup page and choose “inspect.” If the window is a BitB spawn, its URL will be hardcoded into the HTML.
It wouldn’t be surprising to find that the BitB technique has been more widely used, but the reaction mr.d0x received demonstrates that many security defenders aren’t aware of BitB. And that means plenty of end users aren’t, either.
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