Japan's Brother Industries to buy UK's Domino Printing for $1.55 bln

Brother offers 915 pence per share in cash

* Offer at 27 pct premium to Domino's Tuesday close

* Analysts say higher bids possible

* Domino shares jumps to record high of 956 pence (Adds details, analyst comments, share movement)

By Mamidipudi Soumithri

March 11 (Reuters) - Japan's Brother Industries Ltd will buy British barcode-printer maker Domino Printing Sciences Plc for about 1.03 billion pounds in cash ($1.55 billion) to expand its industrial printing range, the companies said.

Domino, which is fighting bigger rivals with enhanced financial firepower, said its shareholders will get 915 pence per share, a 27 percent premium to the stock's Tuesday close.

Domino shares rose to a record 956 pence, well above the recommended offer price, hinting at the possibility of a higher bid. The stock was the biggest gainer on the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday morning.

"There's also potential for a rival bid to come in, probably from a U.S. player, given how neatly Domino would fit into a U.S. portfolio given that's where it is weaker," Peel Hunt analyst Henry Carver told Reuters.

Some analysts named Danaher Corp and Dover Corp as possible bidders. The companies could not immediately be reached for comment.

Domino's products had been leading the digital label printing market in certain areas, and a rival bid wouldn't be surprising, said UBS analyst Robbie Capp in a note.

"It has become increasingly clear that maintaining its position in the enlarged markets will require Domino to find the appropriate partner," Domino Chairman Peter Byrom said.

Brother Industries plans to finance the deal through debt or existing cash. It has a bridge facility with Citibank and Citibank Japan under which 1.073 billion pounds would be available for financing the acquisition.

Domino shareholders will also get the 14.76 pence-per-share final dividend announced in December. They can opt to receive loan notes issued by Brother instead of the cash offer.

Brother, which makes equipment ranging from sewing machines and printers to online karaoke systems, gets about 70 percent of its sales from its printing and solutions unit.

Domino, which makes printers to stamp barcodes and expiry dates on food items, beverage cans and medicines, will operate as a standalone division post the deal, the companies said.

Domino warned in June that 2015 results would be hurt by pricing pressure in Asia and other developing markets and higher research and development expenses.

Sky News reported on Tuesday Domino had agreed to a deal with a Japanese company, adding that the company had held talks with some U.S.-based competitors in recent months.

Citi advised Brother, while Rothschild was Domino's financial adviser. ($1 = 0.6637 pounds)

PayPal sets up Israeli security centre, buys CyActive

Online payments company PayPal, a unit of eBay, is establishing a cyber security centre in Israel and has bought local start-up CyActive to help launch the development.

PayPal, which is slated to split from eBay later this year, did not disclose financial details but Israeli media have said the acquisition was worth $60 million.

"Located in one of the world's top cybersecurity hubs, this new security center will allow us to tap into the country's cutting-edge technology and top cybersecurity talent," PayPal chief technology officer James Barrese wrote in a blog on the company's website.

CyActive, which can predict how malicious software will develop and offer companies detection and prevention, had received a strategic investment from the venture capital unit of Germany company Siemens in September. Financial details were not disclosed.

Siemens joined Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), an Israeli venture capital firm, in investing in CyActive. JVP was the main shareholder in another cyber security company, CyberArk Software , which went public on Nasdaq in September.

Israel's dedication to developing its defence capabilities has been extended to cyberspace in recent years, spawning an industry which has attracted a near four-fold increase in venture capital investment since 2010.

Besides jumpstarting the security centre, Barrese said the acquisition of CyActive will add "future-proof technology" to PayPal's security platform.

This is PayPal's second acquisition in Israel, after it bought FraudSciences, which monitors financial fraud, in 2008 for $169 million. PayPal has a fraud and risk detection centre in Tel Aviv.

Women face growing threat of online domestic abuse - experts - TRFN

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - O nline domestic abuse has become a growing threat for women around the world, with their partners using the Internet, smartphones and tablets to harass them and track their every move, experts said.

While technology has presented new forms of abuse, it has also yielded solutions to help battered women seek assistance, said the experts, who urged women not to allow abuse to deter them from using the Internet or social media.

"We can't allow technology to (become) another way to silence women," said Michaelia Cash, the minister assisting the Australian prime minister for women, at a panel during the U.N. 59th Commission on the Status of Women.

An Australian national survey found that 97 percent of domestic violence support workers said the women they assist experience technology-facilitated abuse, according to Julie Oberin of Australia's Women's Services Network (WESNET).

Moreover, offenders are resorting to increasingly aggressive ways to exert complete control over victims, for example through "revenge porn", in which rapists record videos of the abuse to blackmail victims.

However, technology can and must also be part of the solution to online gender-based violence, panellists said.

In Australia, developers have created apps that help women who face or are at risk of domestic violence seek immediate help through their phones.

The Aurora app, for example, contains emergency contacts, information on domestic violence and links to support services in Australia's New South Wales state.

Oberin said women should not be discouraged from using the Internet or social media such as Twitter and Facebook, where a lot of the abuse takes place.

Doing so would be ineffective and build another barrier to gender equality, she said.

Many women and people working in domestic violence prevention and response have only recently started to recognise online abuse as a serious threat.

"When we started asking for funding for cyberthreats and violence in the early 2000s, people thought it was 'cute,'" said Cindy Southworth, the executive vice president of the U.S. National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

Nearly half of Americans under 35 have been bullied, harassed or threatened online, while women make up 57 percent of victims, according to a poll conducted last year.

The poll indicated more than two-thirds (67 percent) of those harassed online knew their harasser in real life, while in the under-35 age group, that number rose to 72 percent.

Getting tech companies to cooperate initially proved a challenge, Southworth said, as service providers assisting battered women were perceived to be hostile towards technology.

Now, Twitter and Google, among others, have turned to NNEDV when developing safety improvements for their products, she said.

Another challenge has been educating women to use technology safely and respond to abuse, while avoiding at the same time inadvertently "creating a how-to guide for offenders", Southworth said.

Domino Printing says Japan's Brother Industries makes 1 bln stg offer for co

Domino Printing Sciences Plc :

* Recommended offer for Domino Printing Sciences Plc

* Reached pact on cash offer in which Brother will acquire entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of Domino

* Shareholders will be entitled to receive a total of 915 pence in cash for each Domino share held

* Offer values entire issued ordinary share capital of Domino at approximately £1,031 million

* Co shareholders will also receive proposed final dividend for year ended 31 October 2014 of 14.76p per share

* A premium of approximately 42.6 per cent to volume weighted average price per Domino share of 641.7 pence during six month period to 10 March

* As part of offer, a loan note alternative will be available to domino shareholders

* Loan note alternative will enable eligible co shareholders to elect to get loan notes in lieu of part or all of cash consideration Source text for Eikon

Deals of the day- Mergers and acquisitions

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 1000 GMT on Wednesday:

** Barcode-printer maker Domino Printing Sciences Plc said it agreed to be bought by Japan's Brother Industries Ltd for about 1.03 billion pounds ($1.55 billion).

** EQT Midstream Partners LP said it would buy parent EQT Corp's Northern West Virginia Marcellus Gathering System and a preferred interest in an EQT subsidiary for about $1.05 billion.

** Zogenix Inc said on Tuesday it would sell its Zohydro business to Pernix Therapeutics Holdings Inc in a deal that could be worth nearly $400 million, to cut costs and focus on two other drugs in its pipeline.

** Egypt's Commercial International Bank said Citigroup had opened its books for a due diligence process that could lead to the purchase of its retail portfolio.

** Prime Healthcare Services said on Tuesday it had withdrawn its offer to buy the Daughters of Charity Health System in California due to conditions imposed by the state, a move the struggling hospital chain said could force it into bankruptcy.

** South Africa's Bidvest Group Ltd is in talks with a fellow shareholder in Adcock Ingram, the Public Investment Corporation, to jointly control nearly half of struggling drugmaker, it said.

** Greece's National Bank confirmed on Wednesday it will sell shares in its Turkish subsidiary Finansbank AS through a rights issue to raise cash. Earlier, in a statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange, Finansbank said NBG's stake would fall to 73 percent after the offering.

** Swiss-based commodities trader Glencore Plc is expected to own 49 percent of Russia's Russneft oil producer, pending approval from Russia's competition watchdog, Russneft's owner told Rossiya 24 TV channel.

** TD Ameritrade Holding Corp has no interest at the moment in buying smaller discount brokerage rival E*Trade Financial Corp, TD Ameritrade Chief Executive Fred Tomczyk said on Tuesday.

($1 = 0.6637 pounds)

Microsoft warns Windows PCs also vulnerable to 'Freak' attacks

Hundreds of millions of Windows PC users are vulnerable to attacks exploiting the recently uncovered "Freak" security vulnerability, which was initially believed to only threaten mobile devices and Mac computers, Microsoft Corp warned.

News of the vulnerability surfaced on Tuesday when a group of nine security experts disclosed that ubiquitous Internet encryption technology could make devices running Apple Inc's iOS and Mac operating systems, along with Google Inc's Android browser vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Microsoft released a security advisory on Thursday warning customers that their PCs were also vulnerable to the "Freak" vulnerability.

The weakness could allow attacks on PCs that connect with Web servers configured to use encryption technology intentionally weakened to comply with U.S. government regulations banning exports of the strongest encryption.

If hackers are successful, they could spy on communications as well as infect PCs with malicious software, the researchers who uncovered the threat said on Tuesday.

The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that whitehouse.gov and fbi.gov were among the sites vulnerable to these attacks, but that the government had secured them. (wapo.st/18KaxIA)

Security experts said the vulnerability was relatively difficult to exploit because hackers would need to use hours of computer time to crack the encryption before launching an attack.

"I don't think this is a terribly big issue, but only because you have to have many ducks in a row," said Ivan Ristic, director of engineering for cybersecurity firm Qualys Inc.

That includes finding a vulnerable web server, breaking the key, finding a vulnerable PC or mobile device, then gaining access to that device.

Microsoft advised system administrators to employ a workaround to disable settings on Windows servers that allow use of the weaker encryption. It said it was investigating the threat and had not yet developed a security update that would automatically protect Windows PC users from the threat.

Apple said it had developed a software update to address the vulnerability, which would be pushed out to customers next week.

Google said it had also developed a patch, which it provided to partners that make and distribute Android devices.

"Freak" stands for Factoring RSA-EXPORT Keys.

U.S. charges three in ring that stole 1 bln email addresses

Two Vietnamese citizens and a Canadian have been charged with running a massive cyberfraud ring that stole 1 billion email addresses, then sent spam offering knockoff software products, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.

The Justice Department described the hacking spree as "one of the largest" data breaches uncovered in U.S. history. It declined to name the email companies that were victimized, though it appeared that the breaches included a massive 2011 attack on email marketing firm Epsilon.

Security blogger Brian Krebs reported that Epsilon, a unit of Alliance Data Systems Corp, was among the victims. That high-profile 2011 attack was followed by a wave of customer notifications from Epsilon clients, including Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (reut.rs/1En1udF)

Krebs noted that the government's press release said the data breach "was the subject of a congressional inquiry and testimony before a U.S House of Representatives subcommittee on June 2, 2011." The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on that data about breaches at Sony Corp <6758.T) and Epsilon, according to Krebs. (bit.ly/1wbKVi7) Epsilon representatives could not be reached. Viet Quoc Nguyen, 28, is charged with hacking at least eight email service providers between February 2009 and June 2012. The government alleges that Nguyen and Giang Hoang Vu, 25, both Vietnamese citizens, used the stolen email addresses to identify tens of millions of people who they targeted in a spam campaign. The spam emails directed recipients to websites selling software that was falsely branded as Adobe Systems Inc's . Both men resided in the Netherlands. Vu, who was extradited to the United States in March of last year, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit computer fraud. Nguyen remains at large. The other defendant, Canadian David-Manuel Santos Da Silva, 33, was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is the co-owner of a company called 21 Celsius Inc, which struck up a marketing arrangement with Nguyen and Vu to generate revenue and launder the proceeds, according to the indictment. Court documents allege that Da Silva and Nguyen received about $2 million in commissions from the sale of the software, which they marketed as Adobe Reader 10 for $65 a copy. Da Silva was arrested at a Florida airport last month and was set to be arraigned on Friday in Atlanta federal court, according to the Justice Department.