Disaster research.
Dan Boneh, a Stanford professor focused on cybersecurity, and I gave a talk on cybersecurity and the electric grid for the Peninsula Chapter of the World Affairs Council. Dan presented on industrial control system cybersecurity, and I focused on the electric … Continued
The idea of critical infrastructure protection has evolved over the years. Some of this history has been documented, but there is not a specific history for the electric grid or for industrial control systems and cybersecurity. As part of our work … Continued
I wrote this letter to the editor in response to a one year investigation by the Oregonian into the 2015 Canyon Creek fire. The letter was published on August 25th, 2016. Canyon Creek fire: improving the way households and communities live with wildfires … Continued
This post first appeared in Energy Central on August 6th, 2016. In the recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “How America Could Go Dark” (July 14), Rebecca Smith argues that the electric power grid “is in danger of widespread blackouts lasting days, weeks … Continued
In the last post I provided a technical analysis of Concern’s 2016-2020 Strategic Plan. To do this, I also poked around at the plan using NVivo, a programme I use for conducting qualitative analysis. This post shows you some of the results and … Continued
Strategic planning is a way for organisations to set priorities and guide actions toward a common goal. Concern calls its most recent strategic plan an “evolutionary development rather than a radical shift in organisational direction”. Is this actually the … Continued
Last week I presented my research at CISAC’s science seminar. The presentation went well: attendance was good, I enjoyed talking about my stuff, and there were some nice discussions at the end. In the first half of the presentation, I … Continued
I recently had the opportunity to take a five day course on the NERC CIP standards, the federal government’s mandatory cybersecurity standards for the electric sector. I wrote a review of the course, which you can read here.
This article appeared in the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team Industrial Control Systems Joint Working Group March 2016 Newsletter. The ability to keep the lights on in the event of a cyber-incident is a major … Continued
Most of the people in my field seem to approach disasters from a pragmatic perspective. They know disasters can happen and try to reduce the probability or impact of them. None of the people I know act like the world is going to end: they … Continued