By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Friday, July 13, 3:16 PM

The Department of Homeland Security today warned that a popular system used by organizations around the world to manage millions of machines and devices over the Internet is vulnerable to attack from hackers.

The software system known as the Niagara Framework enables corporate, military, health-care and other users to remotely control or monitor medical devices, elevators, video cameras, security systems and a wide array of other sensitive operations.

In an alert issued Friday, cybersecurity officials said that Niagara users should immediately prohibit guest users, bolster passwords, cut off direct access to the Internet and take other steps to prevent hackers from exploiting configuration and software flaws.

“Disable the ‘guest’ and ‘demo’ user accounts if enabled,” says the alert, issued by the department’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team. The alert advised other steps:

● Lock out accounts that receive excessive invalid login attempts.

● Use stronger passwords.

● Change default user names and passwords.

● Limit user access to the file system.

MORE HERE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/homeland-security-warn...