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CIA: Hackers demanding cash disrupted power: Electrical utilities in multiple overseas cities affected

By Ted Bridis

updated 4:06 p.m. MT, Fri., Jan. 18, 2008

WASHINGTON - Hackers literally turned out the lights in multiple cities after breaking into electrical utilities and demanding extortion payments before disrupting the power, a senior CIA analyst told utility engineers at a trade conference.

All the break-ins occurred outside the United States, said senior CIA analyst Tom Donahue. The U.S. government believes some of the hackers had inside knowledge to cause the outages. Donahue did not specify what countries were affected, when the outages occurred or how long the outages lasted. He said they happened in "several regions outside the United States."(read more)

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