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Guarding the Grid

I3P hosts infrastructure protection experts

Cyber security experts from around the world convened at Dartmouth March 19 through 21 for an inaugural meeting of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group for Critical Infrastructure Protection. Co-hosted by IFIP and Dartmouth's Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P), the working group seeks: to bring a global perspective to a topic that lacks geographic boundaries, to exchange research findings, and to create an international community of experts committed to a crucial security issue.

Richard ("Dickie") George '70 spoke in March about the critical need for nations to develop and maintain secure cyber infrastructures. (Photo by Joseph Mehling '69)

The need to safeguard the world's critical infrastructures—the electronic communications networks and physical systems on which most nations now depend—cannot be understated. Not only were these infrastructures designed long before cyber security was an issue, but the digital world is interconnected in ways that were previously unimaginable. As digital networks have grown, so too has the number of hackers and terrorists intent on attacking the infrastructure.
Alumni, faculty, researchers, and students attended the three-day event. "We were honored to host a Working Group on cyber infrastructure protection," says Martin Wybourne, vice provost for research. "These issues have no borders and need an international perspective."

In his keynote address, an impassioned Richard ("Dickie") George '70, technical director of the Information Assurance Directorate of the National Security Agency, said: "Securing the infrastructure is not an exercise, but rather an imperative. There will never be another war against the United States that doesn't include attacks on infrastructure. The bad guys are all interconnected; it is now critical that the good guys be connected, too."

David Kotz, professor of computer science, pointed to Americans' growing reliance on smart devices in their homes and cars. "The average person must not only adjust to a digitally mediated lifestyle, he or she must constantly make decisions to ensure the privacy of information," he said.

Sy Goodman, of Georgia Tech and the I3P, brought an international relations perspective to the meeting, stating, "What cyber space has done—in addition to creating an abstract entity that is totally international—is effectively place all countries physically adjacent to one another. One's enemies are no longer neighbors, they can come from anywhere. At the same time, we are increasingly interconnected electronically and so at greater risk of attack."

With more than 60 researchers representing a dozen countries, many attendees felt the working group was an important first step in thinking globally about vulnerabilities, cyber threats, and infrastructure protection.

Eric Goetz, event co-chair and assistant director of the I3P, said, "The goal of this meeting was to share knowledge and build a community of experts focused on a serious global problem. With a follow-up meeting scheduled in Washington, D.C., and plans for another in Europe, we're clearly off to a good start."

By LAURIE BURNHAM

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