Trend Micro reports finding indications that hackers who hit Ukraine's power grid made preliminary attacks against that country's mines and railroads. The US Deputy Energy Secretary unambiguously attributes the grid hacks to the Russian government.

A study of patriotic hacktivism in India and Pakistan convinces Recorded Future that the calendar can help predict surges in cyber-rioting.

Hacktivists induce breaches in, separately, Chile and Bolivia. Both incidents are said to be devoted to exposing government corruption and slovenly data security practices, but declared motives should probably be treated with caution. As Leo Taddeo, CSO of Cryptzone said, in connection with recent social engineering at the FBI, you don't know much about hackers' motivation "until they're charged and arrested, at which point you can ask them."

British police have arrested a teenager who's allegedly one of the Crackas with Attitude who doxed senior officials of the US Intelligence Community last year.

Carbanak and other threats continue to plague the financial sector. ThreatMetrix thinks bot attacks are the rising threat to banks, with the potential to cost millions in lost business.

Mozilla patches Firefox and Firefox ESR. Observers look at Patch Tuesday and conclude that older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer are now "officially vulnerable."

As the Internet-of-things expands, standards bodies continue to evolve security guidelines. Automation World says it sees signs of an approach to security that's less IT-centric than those hitherto applied to IoT systems.

Finland considers increasing its cyber offensive capability. Some policymakers in India and Taiwan mull cyber militias.