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GROVE CITY, Ohio (WCMH) -- Grove City Council pumped the brakes on a proposed data center campus. With a 6-1 vote, council passed a 12-month moratorium on approving any data centers. Residents were loud and clear about how they felt about the project, from a packed council meeting to protesters outside. “We're not saying, ‘No;’ [...]

Columbus City Hall was illuminated in celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, with the Steven Shellabarger Illuminator Award presented to Jose Rodriguez for his decades of leadership and advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Columbus Recreation and Parks Department plans to once again use private security at its facilities this summer. CRPD tries to fill those security shifts with Columbus Division of Police officers first, but not all of those shifts are picked up by officers. The shifts are not part of their regular [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Leaders of the Ohio Legislature’s Joint Data Center Committee and the group trying to ban large scale data centers statewide welcomed Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R-Ohio) decision to pause new sales tax exemptions. DeWine announced the pause last week after legislative leaders and the public learned those tax breaks cost Ohio more [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) - An annual festival featuring tacos, drinks and music is returning to central Ohio this weekend. The Columbus Taco Fest is set for Saturday from noon to 10 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. at Fortress Obetz. The festival has been bringing taco fans together since 2018, but some new [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- One person is hospitalized after a report of a shooting in east Columbus Monday afternoon. According to Columbus police, officers responded to the 300 block of South Ashburton Road at approximately 2:41 p.m. Police said the victim was taken to the hospital in stable condition, but has since been downgraded to [...]

The Instagram accounts for the Obama White House and the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space Force were briefly defaced with pro-Iranian images and messages over the weekend, after instructions began circulating on Telegram showing how to trick Meta’s “AI support assistant” bot into resetting account passwords.

A screenshot from a video released on Telegram claiming to show how Meta’s AI customer support bot could be tricked into resetting a target’s password.

On May 31, word began to spread on several Telegram instant message channels that Meta’s AI bot would happily add an email address to an existing account as part of the bot’s standard password reset flow.

A video released on Telegram by pro-Iran hackers claimed to document a remarkably simple exploit that appears to have involved using a VPN connection with an IP address that is in or near the target’s usual hometown, requesting a password reset for the account, and then choosing to chat with Meta’s AI support assistant. From there, the video shows the attacker told the bot to link the account in question to a new email address, after which the bot dutifully sent that address a one-time code that allowed a password reset.

The Telegram account that posted the video also linked to screenshots of pro-Iran images, videos and messages that defaced the hacked Instagram accounts, saying hackers had used the exploit to hijack a number of valuable (read: short) Instagram account names that allegedly have a resale value of more than a half million dollars.

Meta has not responded to requests for comment on the video’s claims, but the company reportedly did acknowledge the dormant Instagram account for the Obama White House was briefly compromised. The security blog thecybersecguru.com reports that Meta pushed an emergency patch over the weekend, and clarified that no back end database was breached.

“Instagram has notoriously poor human support infrastructure,” Cybersecguru wrote. “Recovering a locked account – especially a high-value one can take weeks of back-and-forth with an automated ticketing system. Meta’s solution was to deploy a conversational AI layer to handle common recovery workflows: relinking a lost email address, triggering a password reset, verifying account ownership. The assistant, presumably, was supposed to reduce friction for legitimate users stuck in account-access hell.”

Ian Goldin, a threat researcher at Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs, said we’re entering unchartered security territory as more large online platforms start allowing AI chatbots to handle sensitive account recovery requests. Just like human customer support employees can be social engineered into providing unauthorized access to someone’s account, AI bots are equally eager to help and vulnerable to persuasion and trickery, he said.

“AI chatbots create interesting new attack surface, and we’re likely going to see a lot more of these kinds of attacks,” Goldin said.

Securing your various online accounts means taking full advantage of the most secure form of multi-factor authentication (MFA) offered (such as a passkey or security key). In this case, even using the least robust form of MFA that Instagram offers — a one-time code sent via SMS — likely would have blocked the exploit: The hackers who released the video on Telegram said their exploit failed to work against any accounts that had MFA enabled.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- A Columbus police officer was among several injured Monday morning after a crash involving a CPD cruiser. The crash happened at 9:53 a.m. in the area of Demorest Road and Briggs Road in Franklin Township, according to police. The officer was taken to a hospital in what officials described as stable [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio will be reviewing approximately 5,000 commercial driver's licenses held by non-permanent residents under updated federal guidance. Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles registrar Charlie Norman announced that the agency would be contacting non-domiciled CDL holders with one of two letters via the U.S. Postal Service. Non-domiciled CDL holders are those who [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The national coffee chain Dutch Bros will debut its first central Ohio location this year. The brand announced on Wednesday that it plans to open at 5344 W. Broad St. in Prairie Township during the fourth quarter of 2026, which spans October through December. The coffee shop will take over a [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The High Street Waffle House near Ohio State's campus will close this year. Waffle House's 1712 N. High St. location will close in 2026, landlord Schiff Real Estate Co. confirmed to NBC4 partner Columbus Business First. The Georgia-based breakfast food chain has 10 locations in Columbus, including the campus spot, which [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A man accused of shooting two Mifflin Township police officers has pleaded guilty. Daveonte Dixon, 22, accepted a plea agreement during Monday’s court hearing, a continuation into a trial in which he was accused of shooting two officers during a police pursuit on May 28, 2025. Dixon, facing 11 felony charges, [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- It was America's bicentennial year. And it was the first edition of the Memorial Tournament, which happened to end in a four-hole playoff. But that inaugural edition at Muirfield Village Golf Club in 1976 will likely be best remembered for the colorful pants worn by the winner. "I try to defend [...]

The Wellington School in Upper Arlington, Ohio is undergoing a multi-year "Bold Leap" strategic plan, which includes the demolition of the original 1918 Perry Township schoolhouse and a 70,000 square foot renovation of existing campus facilities, set to be completed in late 2027.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Amid renewed public attention to a deadly Ohio car crash, an online petition is calling on lawmakers to modernize state law to prevent violent offenders from profiting off social media. On July 31, 2022, Mackenzie Shirilla, who was 17 at the time, drove her car at 100 mph into a building [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Both candidates vying for U.S. Senator from Ohio have launched ad campaigns accusing the other of accepting donations from associates of convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein. For months, Democrat Sherrod Brown's campaign has accused Republican Jon Husted of taking over $116,000 in donations from Ohio billionaire Les Wexner. In a new [...]