Imagine massive blackouts, the disruption of essential government services, or hackers gaining access to millions of networked consumer devices.
Imagine massive blackouts, the disruption of essential government services, or hackers gaining access to millions of networked consumer devices. Birol Yeşilada has been thinking about cyber threats to infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest. Whereas attention at the national level has primarily focused on defense, transportation, and telecommunications, Yeşilada argues we should also emphasize essential infrastructure at the local and regional levels.
“For the federal government, much of the focus has been on upgrading and securing the top level of infrastructure from cyberattacks,” said Yeşilada, government faculty and director of Portland State University’s Mark O. Hatfield School of Government. “We need a top-down approach, but we also need a bottom-up approach if we’re going to protect what I call ‘America’s soft underbelly’—the vulnerabilities at local and regional governments, utilities and special districts serving the communities we live in.”
Yeşilada is the principal investigator of a new two-year, $2 million grant awarded to PSU by the National Security Agency. The grant establishes and funds a consortium of public, private and academic partners that will address cybersecurity issues related to smart grid infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii and Colorado. Yeşilada will work with co-investigators Tugrul Daim, PSU engineering and technology management faculty, and Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, executive director of Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at the University of Washington-Bothell.
Read more at Portland State University
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