May 22 (Reuters) – Cybersecurity researcher HD Moore
discovered he could use the Internet to access the controls of
some 30 pipeline sensors around the country that were not
password protected.

A hacking expert who helps companies uncover network
vulnerabilities, Moore said he found the sensors last month
while analyzing information in huge, publicly available
databases of Internet-connected devices.

WASHINGTON/BOSTON May 21 (Reuters) – Several power utilities
say they face a barrage of cyber attacks on their critical
systems, a report by two Democratic lawmakers found echoing
warnings from the Obama administration that foreign hackers were
trying to bring down the U.S. power grid.

California Representative Henry Waxman released the report,
co-authored with Massachusetts Representative Ed Markey, at the
House Energy and Commerce Committee’s cybersecurity hearing on
Tuesday.

May 17 (Reuters) – The Financial Times’ website and Twitter
feeds were hacked on Friday, renewing questions about whether
the popular social media service has done enough to tighten
security as cyber-attacks on the news media intensify.

The Syrian Electronic Army, an online group that supports
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was behind the incident which
followed a phishing attack on the company’s email accounts, FT
reported on its website.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Kaspersky Lab, the Russian anti-virus software maker, plans to open an office in the Washington area to spearhead sales to the U.S. government, a bid to offset slowing demand for its programs for consumers.

Kaspersky makes one of the top-selling anti-virus programs in the United States, where it has gained market share in recent years against products from Symantec Corp (SYMC.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Intel Corp’s (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) McAfee and Trend Micro Inc (4704.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Downplaying warnings about the potential for hackers to sabotage U.S. power plants at the click of a mouse, the head of the North American electricity standards group said on Monday he is more concerned about physical rather than cyber threats.

“It takes a small number of crews with explosives and you’ve created not only an outage over an area or a city, but smoke and fire and flash-type stuff,” Gerry Cauley, chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC), told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit.

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) – Downplaying warnings about
the potential for hackers to sabotage U.S. power plants at the
click of a mouse, the head of the North American electricity
standards group said on Monday he is more concerned about
physical rather than cyber threats.

“It takes a small number of crews with explosives and you’ve
created not only an outage over an area or a city, but smoke and
fire and flash-type stuff,” Gerry Cauley, chief executive of the
North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC), told the
Reuters Cybersecurity Summit.

DUBAI/BOSTON (Reuters) – Two companies with major operations in India were the weak links that opened the door to a $45 million global cyber heist brought to light by U.S. authorities this week.

EnStage Inc, which operates from Bangalore, and ElectraCard Services, which is based in Pune, processed card payments for the two Middle Eastern banks that were hit in the theft, according to several people familiar with the situation.