• California unveils GIS initiative

    Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) enhance the technology for environmental protection, natural resource management, traffic flow, emergency preparedness and response, land use planning, and health and human services; California wants to avail itself of the technology’s benefits

  • Global warming will cause storms to intensify

    Daniel Bernoulli’s eighteenth-century equation basically says that as wind speed increases, air pressure decreases; his equation leaves out variables that were considered difficult to deal with such as friction and energy sources; Wolverines researchers now include these additional variables and find that for every 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit that the Earth’s surface temperature warms, the intensity of storms could increase by at least a few percent

  • Security flaw prompts major Web alert

    Internet security specialist discovers major flaw in the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS); the flaw allows hackers to inject themselves into the URL-typing process, intercepting the name entered by the user and mapping it to a different Internet address than the one intended

  • Rising sea level threatens U.K. coastal rail lines

    Andrew McNaughton, Network Rail’s chief engineer: “The effects of climate change, and in particular sea level rise, are likely to increase the severity of the wave, tidal and wind effects on coastal defenses”

  • Banks' PIN codes susceptible to hackers' theft

    Network of PIN codes’ thieves nets millions of dollars; hackers are targeting the ATM system’s infrastructure, which is increasingly built on Microsoft’s Windows operating system and allows machines to be remotely diagnosed and repaired over the Internet

  • Pentagon's IG resigns

    Claude Kicklighter, who took over as Pentagon inspector general in April 2007, has accepted a teaching position at George Mason University; he will be executive director of the university’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Project

  • Melting ice menaces Russia's critical infrastructure

    Russian scientists say that the hard permafrost covering the ground year-round across Russia’s far north will melt by 2030; government officials say that if this happens, critical infrastructure, including key airfields, oil storage facilities, and strategic oil reservoirs, could all be destroyed

  • U.K. critical infrastructure vulnerable

    New report says last summer’s flood showed infrastructure’s vulnerability; funding for flood defenses was not sufficient or secure, undermining industry confidence, and there were not enough skilled engineers to deliver the protection from flooding needed

  • Israeli government prepares for major earthquake in north

    In one three-month period this year, around 500 small tremors were recorded in northern Israel; Israeli government health officials urge hospitals, municipalities to prepare for worst

  • Oversight of fire protection at U.S. nuclear reactors could be strengthened

    GAO examined the oversight exercised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over fire protection procedures at U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, and says this oversight could be strengthened

  • TSA issues TWIC card readers standards

    The Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) aims to register about 1.2 million employees in U.S. ports and those who have regular access to these ports; the agency issues standard for readers which will read the information off TWIC cards

  • New Indian Point siren system scores high in full test

    Test of new alarm siren system in the four counties surrounding the Indian Point nuclear plants in New York produce good grades

  • Is flooding really as big a risk to Britain now as terrorism?

    In 2007 the U.K. saw disastrous summer flooding in Yorkshire and the Severn valley around Gloucester and Tewkesbury. These floods caused the largest peacetime emergency in Britain since the Second World War

  • DHS seeks public comments on infrastructure protection plan

    DHS invites the public to comment on revisions to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan; last time DHS conducted a review of the NIPP in 2006, some 10,000 comments were submitted

  • Protecting IT infrastructure

    The U.S. National Weather Service says that 910 storms had already been recorded by mid-May, a considerable number when compared with 1,093 confirmed tornadoes for all of 2007; U.S. business had better be prepared