PRESS RELEASE
Auburn, Ala. – Auburn College’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Vital Infrastructure Safety was awarded a $10 million Division of Vitality grant in partnership with Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory (ORNL) to create a pilot regional cybersecurity analysis and operations middle to guard the electrical energy grid towards cyberattacks.
The full worth of the mission is $12.5 million, with the extra $2.5 million coming from Auburn College and different strategic companions.
The middle, formally named the Southeast Area Cybersecurity Collaboration Heart (SERC3), will convey collectively specialists from the personal sector, academia and authorities to share info and generate revolutionary real-world options to guard the nation’s energy grid and different key sectors. It’ll embrace a mock utility command middle to coach members in real-time cyber protection.
“Auburn College is proud to be on the forefront of this vital subject as we work towards one of many best threats the nation and the enterprise sector will face sooner or later,” mentioned Steve Taylor, Auburn College’s senior vp for analysis and financial growth. “The middle will conduct crucial analysis and supply actual operational options to guard all of us as we handle these challenges. We’re grateful to Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory for partnering with us and Rep. Mike Rogers for his assist in securing funding for this crucial program.”
The middle will run experiments with trade companions in a analysis lab atmosphere to assist integration of latest and current safety software program and {hardware} into operational environments. Analysis labs will likely be established at Auburn College, housed on the Samuel Ginn Faculty of Engineering, and on the Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
“We’re excited to work with Auburn on this vital nationwide mission,” mentioned Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory Director Stephen Streiffer. “We’re combining our capabilities to associate with trade, develop new safety applied sciences and switch these applied sciences to trade, all whereas creating the workforce that can function these enhanced methods.”
Workforce and expertise growth will likely be a core function of Auburn’s on this partnership.
“This mission supplies an thrilling alternative for our faculty and our college students,” mentioned Mario Eden, dean of the Samuel Ginn Faculty of Engineering. “Our college students will get hands-on expertise in a real-world atmosphere. Now we have a confirmed observe document of innovation and this mission completely aligns with our mission to offer the most effective student-centered engineering expertise in America and broaden our engineering information by way of analysis.”
With an emphasis on crucial infrastructure, the analysis will assist utilities throughout the nation change into extra resilient to the rising menace of cyberattacks.
“We all know that adversaries need the flexibility to disrupt our power infrastructure, which might be devastating for our communities,” mentioned Moe Khaleel, affiliate laboratory director for Nationwide Safety Sciences at ORNL. “SERC3 will give attention to establishing regional partnerships and creating science-based options to mitigate these threats – and hold everybody’s lights on.”
Puesh M. Kumar, director of the Division of Vitality’s Workplace of Cybersecurity, Vitality Safety and Emergency Response (CESER), praised the collaboration between organizations.
“I applaud Auburn College and Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory’s collaborative effort to advance grid cybersecurity,” Kumar mentioned. “Everybody should come collectively – trade, the nationwide laboratories, academia, in addition to State and Federal governments – if we’re to succeed towards the rising cyber threats going through the U.S. power sector from malicious actors and nation-states just like the Folks’s Republic of China. This partnership is a crucial instance of that.”
Frank Cilluffo, director of the McCrary Institute, mentioned the mission is on the core of what the institute does.
“A safe and resilient grid is a nationwide and regional crucial,” Cilluffo mentioned. “Spearheaded by James Goosby at McCrary and Tricia Schulz at Oak Ridge, we are going to create new analysis to quickly determine, share and mitigate cybersecurity dangers whereas we prepare the longer term workforce we have to hold us protected.”
Net supply: https://www.eng.auburn.edu/information/2024/04/mccrary-serc3.html
Auburn College is a nationally ranked land grant establishment acknowledged for its dedication to world-class scholarship, interdisciplinary analysis with an elite, top-tier Carnegie R1 classification, life-changing outreach with Carnegie’s Group Engagement designation and an undergraduate training expertise second to none. Auburn is residence to greater than 30,000 college students, and its college and analysis companions collaborate to develop and ship significant scholarship, science and technology-based developments that meet urgent regional, nationwide and international wants. Auburn’s dedication to energetic pupil engagement, skilled success and public/personal partnership drives a rising repute for outreach and extension that delivers broad financial, well being and societal influence.
