A Message from the Executive Director

Dear Colleagues,

Following the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, many of us in Virginia were met with "no gas" signs or long lines in our search to fill up the tank. This attack clearly shows how vulnerable the nation’s energy infrastructure is to cyber threats and how much these threats affect our daily lives. 

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative researchers are working to change that. They are engaged in research funded by CCI, industry, and federal agencies, ranging from power grids to healthcare systems, to make the systems we rely upon more resilient to cyberattacks. 

Liu, Ali Mehrizi-Sani, a Virginia Tech associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and their team are combining the power of a power system testbed with the CCI 5G Testbed to build security into the system. They’re also setting up a “neighborhood watch” for the power grid to quickly spot threats and stop them from spreading. 

In the past, power grid substations didn’t talk to one another but now they can through fast 5G networks. Word spreads fast, similar to when a neighbor spots a suspicious vehicle on the street, and the grid can be protected before harm strikes. “Neighbors alert neighbors that there’s a problem,” Liu said. 

Hurricanes, pandemics, and other natural disasters put extra stress on hospitals and offer bad actors the opportunity to launch a cyberattack on an already vulnerable system. Kathryn Laskey, a professor of systems engineering and operations research at George Mason University’s Volgenau School of Engineering, is working on how to make these systems more resilient.

The invasion can start with a simple click. 

“You need to have good cyber hygiene,” said Laskey. “Most of the attacks start with people clicking on a link they shouldn’t and that’s how someone gets into your system.” 

Paying a ransom may not be the best course of action and invite more attacks in the future, she noted. “Good system backups mean you can recover from an attack. If you have these plans in place, you’re not necessarily forced to pay the ransom.”

Liu and Laskey are only some of the CCI researchers working on securing the nation’s critical infrastructure. George Mason’s Duminda Wijesekera, computer science professor, Daniel Barbara, computer science professor, and Eric Osterwell, computer science assistant professor, as well as Virginia Tech’s Dushan Boroyevich, University Distinguished Professor, and Vijay K. Shah, research assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department, are among the cadre of researchers addressing this issue.