Protected vulnerable infrastructure

Securing U.S. infrastructure from the start

In its first year, GSI established the Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics. The initiative’s first center was tasked with taking a proactive, interdisciplinary approach to the issue of cybersecurity. Proper cybersecurity measures are critical when it comes to protecting our nation’s infrastructure.

“I am thrilled to have the Global Security Initiative’s first center address this challenge, bringing together expertise from across the campus, and connecting to both private and public partners,” GSI Executive Director Nadya Bliss said when launching the center. “In this age of interconnectedness and complexity, cybersecurity is at the forefront of our security as a human race.”

That same year, ASU was also named a partner in a $28.1 million national research program, the Cyber Resilient Energy Delivery Consortium. The consortium was tasked to develop cybersecurity tools and standards to protect the country’s electricity infrastructure from attacks.

Energy-delivery systems are critical infrastructures that rely on complex industrial

control networks and enterprise networks for management and day-to-day operations. But these networks also expose the systems to cyberattacks with dire consequences.

“Our stake in this initiative is to focus on securing several new technologies that are emerging,” said Gail-Joon Ahn, founding director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics who co-led ASU’s efforts. “We will study the coupling that exists between energy-delivery systems and other infrastructures, including building and home automation infrastructures and the so-called Internet of Things, which can make the end use of electricity responsive to grid congestion, but may also be vulnerable to cyberattacks aimed at creating imbalance in the grid.”

In 2022, GSI combined this center with the Cybersecurity Education Consortium to form a single organization: the Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations. The unit holistically addresses the complex cybersecurity challenges facing the nation by fortifying the fundamental building blocks of security — technology, process and workforce.