In a similar vein to the new critical updates given by the FBI director in January, stressing that hackers had infiltrated water facilities and other sites and could launch a coordinated attack at any time, Auburn University has recently been granted a 10 million grant from the Department of Energy to establish a cyber protection plan for the nation’s electric grid. Along with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the project will initially begin a pilot center in collaboration with the academic, government, and private sectors. Costing around 15 million dollars, this center “will conduct critical research and provide real operational solutions to protect,” according to the university’s senior vice president. Auburn University will especially focus on the development of skills for real-world scenarios. The integration of old facilities and new technology is especially crucial for this center to provide resilience to a cyber-attack.
While much of cybersecurity news is focused on the private sector, just as important is the vulnerability of infrastructure and government systems. To truly build foundational solutions, cooperation from all parties will be required, as they each have a role and their self-interest in promoting cybersecurity solutions. This grant from the DOE to Auburn University is unique, as it ties in the expertise from the government and academic fields while allowing experimentation from the private sector. As the expertise of nefarious actors grows daily, partnerships like these grow increasingly critical to ensure the resiliency of the foundational infrastructure of the United States.
