April 8, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members aboard, FOX News has learned.

The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya at the time it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk.

A Kenya-based diplomat identified the vessel and told the Associated Press all crew members are American. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The U.S. Navy confirmed the hijacking early Wednesday off the eastern coast of Somalia and said it is monitoring the situation with its own ships.

Spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said the attack happened in the early hours of the morning, about 280 miles northeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia.

“The area, the ship was taken in, is not where the focus of our ships has been,” Christensen told The Associated Press on the phone from the 5th Fleet’s Mideast headquarters in Bahrain.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,513183,00.html

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April 8, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

WASHINGTON —  Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” said a senior intelligence official. “So have the Russians.”

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com’s Cybersecurity Center.

The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn’t target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. “There are intrusions, and they are growing,” the former official said, referring to electrical systems. “There were a lot last year.”

Many of the intrusions were detected not by the companies in charge of the infrastructure but by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said. Intelligence officials worry about cyber attackers taking control of electrical facilities, a nuclear power plant or financial networks via the Internet.

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, “If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on.”

Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

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