From Reuters

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Feb 5 (Reuters) - A widely used system for controlling electricity, heating and other systems inside buildings remains vulnerable to attacks over the Internet, despite warnings from U.S. officials, researchers said on Tuesday.

The Niagara control system from Honeywell International Inc's Tridium division are configured to connect to the Internet by default, even though that is not necessary for them to function, two researchers from security firm CyLance said at a security conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In their presentation, the two researchers showed that some 21,000 Niagara systems used at hospitals and other facilities can currently be accessed via the public Internet, using a specialized search engine known as Shodan.

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