Varsity engineers help Black Sea nations fight cybersecurity threats
AMES, Iowa: Iowa State University (ISU)faculty members and graduate students have powered up their cybersecurity test bed and dissected the December 2015 cyberattack that hijacked and took down dozens of power substations across western Ukraine.
That cyberattack left some 230,000 Ukrainians without power for up to six hours.
Eight electric utility regulators from Ukraine and three other Black Sea countries – Armenia, Georgia and Moldova – paid very close attention to what Iowa State’s test bed showed them.
“It had a huge impact,” said David Jiles, an Iowa State Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering and Palmer Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary Engineering. “Seeing what we can do was enormously important to them.”
The Black Sea electricity regulators were on campus as part of a cybersecurity study tour sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The study tour featured three days of meetings, presentations and training sessions in Washington, D.C. Those were followed by two days of cybersecurity demonstrations and presentations at Iowa State.
The agency’s Cybersecurity Initiative began three years ago, said Steve Burns, the chief of USAID’s Energy and Infrastructure Division in the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. The initiative is all about reducing the region’s vulnerabilities to cyberattacks, drafting cybersecurity strategies, boosting economic growth and increasing the region’s energy security.
Burns said Iowa State’s expertise was brought into the programme after meeting and working with Jiles during his term as a Jefferson Science Fellow and scientific adviser to the US State Department and USAID.
Jiles, while using his fellowship to develop a triage tool to help countries fight off cyberattacks, suggested that US officials working to promote international cybersecurity should take advantage of a test bed developed at Iowa State. — Newswise