utilities

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI today dismissed the conclusions of a report that a cyber intrusion caused a pump at an Illinois water utility to burn out. But the statement doesn't explain why an Illinois state terrorism intelligence center would say it was a hacker when it wasn't.

In the meantime, the DHS is investigating a claim by a hacker who goes by "pr0f" who claimed to have compromised a Texas water utility last week.

"After detailed analysis, DHS and the FBI have found no evidence of a cyber intrusion into the SCADA … Read more

A twentysomething hacker said today that he hacked into a South Houston water utility to show that it can easily be done, after U.S. officials downplayed the risks from a report yesterday of an intrusion at an Illinois water plant.

The hacker, using the alias "pr0f," said he has hacked other SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems too.

He tweeted on November 5 links to public posts with what he identified as PLC configurations for a Polish waste-water treatment plant; SCADA data from an HMI (human-machine interface) box possibly for a generator used for research purposes … Read more

Intruders compromised a water utility network last week and destroyed a pump, according to a state government report cited by a critical infrastructure security expert today.

It appears that hackers breached the network of a company that makes SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) and stole customer usernames and passwords, said Joe Weiss, managing partner of Applied Control Solutions. "There was damage--the SCADA system was powered on and off, burning out a water pump," he wrote in a brief blog post.

The report did not identify the water utility attacked or the SCADA software vendor compromised, Weiss said … Read more

Advanced SystemCare Free 5 uses its powerful arsenal of optimization tools to keep your PC feeling fresh and clean. It also includes a couple of features that could help boost performance for either gaming or work purposes--your choice.

Advanced SystemCare's Quick Care option includes the ability to clean your Registry, perform a rudimentary malware scan, fix and remove broken shortcuts, delete junk files, and erase browsing tracks. It works in a flash, requires almost no user input, and to make things even easier, can be configured to run on system startup.

The Deep Care option, on the other hand, … Read more

There's one thing you can do to avoid being the victim of identity theft: follow this 10-step PC security plan.

Encrypt your network connection Most popular sites offer HTTPS connections at least some of the time. In Gmail, click the gear icon in the top-right corner and select "Always use https" under the General tab.

To select Facebook's HTTPS setting, click the down arrow in the top-right corner and choose Account settings. Select Security in the left pane and Edit in the Secure Browsing section of the main window. Check "Browse Facebook on a secure … Read more

The folks at IObit have just released version 5 of their highly rated Advanced SystemCare program, and it still packs a punch.

Now compatible with both 32- and 64-bit systems, and dressed in a slightly improved user interface, Advanced SystemCare 5 is a great all-in-one PC utility that can scan, repair, and optimize many aspects of your system. Choose between Quick Care and Deep Care modes, depending on how invasive you want to get (and how much time you have). Also, optimize performance with the improved Turbo Boost mode.

New to version 5 is the Active Boost function, which monitors … Read more

Advanced SystemCare Free 5 uses its powerful arsenal of optimization tools to keep your PC feeling fresh and clean. It also includes a couple of features that could help boost performance for either gaming or work purposes--your choice.

Advanced SystemCare's Quick Care option includes the ability to clean your registry, perform a rudimentary malware scan, fix and remove broken shortcuts, delete junk files, and erase browsing tracks. It works in a flash, requires almost no user input, and to make things even easier, can be configured to run on system startup.

The Deep Care option, on the other hand, … Read more

Teachers these days need all the help they can get. Totally Free Teacher Tools is a suite of five tools that can be useful to teachers and plenty of other people, too. Although none of the tools are must-haves, they're not bad to have around just in case.

Once Totally Free Teacher Tools is installed, users have the option to download each individual tool one at a time. This is useful if you don't want to clutter up your computer with unneeded programs, but a bit of a pain if you want to try everything out. We started … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions on preserving an intact preferences file for restoring if the working one becomes corrupt, using an alternative e-mail account with iCloud, an unrecoverable filesystem error showing in Disk Utility, and why not download PKG installer files directly. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present answers here, we welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

NOTE: The "contact us" box for e-mailing us will hopefully … Read more