Water System Infrastructure - Innovative Experiential Learning Model to Enhance Career Interest in Cyber-Water
Researchers will develop CyberShield H20, an experiential learning game to inspire and train students to join a water system cyber workforce to defend, detect, and repair cyber incursions on water facilities.
Funded by the CCI Hub
Project Investigators
- Principal Investigator (PI): Rafael Diaz, Old Dominion University School of Cybersecurity
- Co-PI: Zhengdao Wang, George Mason University College of Engineering and Computing
Rationale and Background
The United States has more than 148,000 drinking water systems, and the American Water Works Association says a cybersecurity attack on critical water operations could devastate public health and safety and threaten national security.
Many water systems face limited budgets, aging computer systems, and personnel who lack the knowledge and experience to build robust cybersecurity defenses and respond to attacks.
To prepare the workforce to tackle cybersecurity threats, workers must be trained in systems thinking, water system engineering, cyber-physical systems (CPS), and the human-machine interface within water systems.
Methodology
Researchers will develop the game CyberShield H20 to boost critical systems thinking, which will:
- Train students to anticipate, identify, and respond to cyber risks to our municipal water systems.
- Increase awareness of cybersecurity jobs within water municipal facilities
- Boost knowledge of the public health and economic importance of our nation’s water system as critical cyber-dependent infrastructure.
- Incorporate STEM engineering and cybersecurity concepts.
Projected outcomes
The game will:
- Be piloted in underserved communities and diverse institutions in Virginia.
- Be available at no cost in the Virginia Cyber Range (researchers have in-kind contributions for industry members).
- Offer an engaging approach to promote water systems literacy, education, and career exposure, specifically in cyber-water resilience.
- Advance awareness of the critical relationships among cybersecurity risk, water systems, and citizens’ health and economic well-being will draw interested youth to these fields.
- Help communities better manage cyber-water risk.