control systems

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $2.7 million grant to an eight-state consortium of technology centers and community colleges that is working to block cyber attacks and stop the loss of high-tech jobs in the U.S., officials said Wednesday.

Better control of building systems is one of the keys to reducing overall building energy usage. Building systems have always had control systems associated with them, and some of them are very complex, highly engineered systems. But centralized systems can be expensive, difficult to program, and are not necessarily responsive to changing conditions.

Better control of building systems is one of the keys to reducing overall building energy usage. Building systems have always had control systems associated with them, and some of them are very complex, highly engineered systems. But centralized systems can be expensive, difficult to program, and are not necessarily responsive to changing conditions.

Spam is on the rise again, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Spam dropped two-thirds in November after Silicon Valley-based McColo, a major spam network, was shut down. At the time, Symantec correctly predicted little long-term effect on spam levels.

"Symantec cautions users to continue to be on guard against spam and malicious code attacks as attackers have traditionally tried to leverage festive session and topical global events to lure users into opening and responding to their messages," said Vincent Weafer, senior director of the Symantec Antivirus Research Center.

Attackers could gain control of water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities because of a vulnerability in the software that runs some of those facilities, security researchers reported Wednesday.

Experts with Boston-based Core Security Technologies, who discovered the deficiency and described it exclusively to The Associated Press before they issued a security advisory, said there's no evidence anyone else found or exploited the flaw.