Hello. U.S. cyber officials are urging power companies to take lessons from a December cyberattack linked to Russia against Poland's energy sector. 

Unlike other strikes on electricity providers that have disrupted only administrative systems, this one also hit operational technology at a handful of sites. It damaged equipment that provided visibility between facilities and wiped out critical data, Poland's top government cyber agency said. Firmware inside devices was also compromised. 

The attackers got in through edge devices, namely firewalls from Fortinet. 

In an alert Tuesday, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reiterated warnings to get rid of internet-facing devices with known bugs or old ones that are no longer supported. 

CISA noted that operational devices without modern firmware can be permanently damaged. And, a perennial problem: Organizations must stop using default credentials. 

Poland's report is recommended reading.

More news below. 

• About 25% of Nova Scotia Power's meters still aren't working properly. The organization, which recently asked regulators for a rate hike, faces two hearings at the Nova Scotia Energy Board and an investigation by Canada's privacy commission. (Toronto Star)

• Inaccurate utility bills after a cyberattack is common. Residents of Middletown, N.Y., are filing complaints to the city about unusually high water bills after a hack of municipal systems in August 2025. (Journal-News)
• In the Texas city of San Angelo, online payments for water usage have been disrupted since Friday after the city's card processor was hacked. (Fox West Texas)

Former employee breached Coupang, government probe finds. A former engineer at Coupang—South Korea's e-commerce giant—used known problems in the company's authentication process to get into systems, the Science Ministry said Tuesday. The breach went on until November, exposing the data of 33 million customers.

• The engineer wrote 140 million queries of Coupang's systems. 
• "It's more of a management problem than an advanced attack," Choi Woo-hyuk, deputy minister for cyber security and network policy, said.
• Coupang also tried to interfere with the ministry's investigation by deleting information, government officials said. (Reuters)

The European Union approved Google’s $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity startup Wiz, a win for the Alphabet unit’s largest-ever takeover. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Tuesday the deal is unlikely to affect competition in the bloc.

• Customers could switch to services provided by other competitors if Google started bundling Wiz’s security platform with its own existing products or if Wiz’s platform became incompatible with any cloud that competes with Google’s, the regulator said.
• The U.S. cleared the deal in November. (WSJ)

The WSJ Pro Cybersecurity team is Deputy Bureau Chief Kim S. Nash and reporters Angus Loten and James Rundle. Follow us on X @WSJCyber. Reach the team by replying to any newsletter you receive or by emailing Kim at kim.nash@wsj.com.