• States, localities are slow to repair poorly maintained levees

    Two years ago the U.S. government identified 122 levees as too poorly maintained to be reliable in major floods; only forty-five of them had necessary repairs; people living behind the unrepaired levees should be concerned

  • More secure European electrical grid

    Several European Transmission System Operators (TSOs) launch a new initiative designed to improve electrical systems security throughout Europe

  • Mobile security market to reach $890 million by 2011

    Mobile security market will continue to grow, driven by backhaul and data center upgrades

  • Day of smart grid nears

    Major blackouts may be a thing of the past: the world’s first high-voltage Li-ion system can connect to the grid, without a transformer, and immediately turn on if there is a disruption in power

  • Briefly noted

    The principles which should guide Obama’s $700 billion infrastructure plan… Cisco becomes infrastructure player on Obama tech focus… EU piracy mission chief calls for more surveillance equipment

  • Making older buildings safer during earthquakes

    Buildings being built now in earthquake-prone regions are designed better to withstand tremors; trouble is, for a long while yet, most of the buildings in which people live and work were built before new earthquake-related design concepts and new materials were available; UC San Diego researchers look for ways to make these buildings safer

  • FBI: Growing copper theft threatens U.S. critical infrastructure

    The FBI says that, individually, isolated instances of copper theft cause big enough headaches of their own, but taken together, they present a significant problem for the United States — a threat to public safety and to U.S. critical infrastructure

  • NIST releases final WTC 7 report

    NIST releases final version of its investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center building 7; heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down

  • Can China's future earthquakes be predicted?

    To predict earthquakes, China relied on GPS data, which showed movements of two millimeters per year in certain areas of Szechwan province where a May 2008 earthquake killed 70,000 people (20,000 are still missing) and destroyed more than eight million homes; scientists examine a better way to predict disasters

  • Briefly noted

    Obama administration looks to fill more than 300 IT positions… Larger inmate population is boon to private prisons… More attacks on critical infrastructure?

  • Energy industry likely prime cyber attack target

    Critical infrastructure insiders say the energy industry is also the most vulnerable to cyber attacks and would have the most detrimental breach

  • Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository too small

    Congress has placed a 77,000-ton limit on the amount of nuclear waste that can be buried in Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository (the repository will open in 2020 at the earliest); trouble is, the 104 active U.S. nuclear reactors, together with the Pentagon, produce that amount of waste in two years

  • DHS releases FY2009 guidance for $3 billion worth of grants

    FEMA requests applications for 14 programs for which it has allocated $3 billion; funded programs concentrate on state and local governments and strengthening community preparedness

  • New bridge-inspection software contributes to bridge security

    Inspecting a bridge for hairline cracks, flaking concrete, and rust has been a manual process — inspectors have always examined bridges for visible damage directly on site; German researchers develop software which allows digital inspection of bridges and other structures

  • Good code, bad computations: A computer security vulnerability

    Beware of return-oriented programming — that is, if you want to make sure your computer or server is not tricked into undertaking malicious or undesirable behavior