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The computers that control large industrial control systems the sewage plants, power stations, and assembly lines that keep civilization running aren’t supposed to be online. Computers online tend to get hacked, of course, and you wouldn’t want your local power plant under rogue control . But a graduate student was able to locate and map more than 10,000 industrial control systems that are directly connected to the Internet, as reported by Kim Zetter at Wired’s Threat Level Blog .

Last year word broke of a computer virus that had managed to slip into Iran’s highly secure nuclear enrichment facilities. Most viruses multiply without prejudice, but the Stuxnet virus had a specific target in its sights--one that is not connected to the Internet. Stuxnet was planted on a USB stick that was handed to an unsuspecting technician, who plugged it into a computer at a secure facility