One alarming academic article by Dheeraj Gurugubelli and Dr Chris Foreman of Purdue University sets out how a targeted attack on smart meters could potentially result in the shutdown of the power grid, disabling energy delivery systems. (They argue that “the compromise of even a single smart meter through focused attack or reverse engineering potentially provides access to the AMI network as a whole. This, coupled with the extensive use of multiple wireless technologies and geographic dispersion, results in an attack surface of unprecedented scale.”
“Unless they have been independently tested, we don’t know that they have made a correct choice and implemented a good algorithm, and use appropriate methods to generate and distribute keys,” according to Eugene H. Spafford, a computer science professor at Purdue University.
Elisa Bertino, professor of computer science, research director of Purdue’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) and director of Purdue’s Cyber Center in Discovery Park. For distinguished contributions to information and computer security.
The Indiana Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IN-ISAC), for instance, is a multi-agency initiative between the Indiana Office of Technology and Purdue University. The IN-ISAC provides notifications to local governments and schools either through its own work or through developed relations with the private sector. It also has a number of public partnerships.
“Indiana State Police, Homeland Security, the National Guard and our universities — Indiana University, Purdue and Notre Dame — are cybersecurity leaders in their respective fields,” said IN-ISAC Manager Nicholas Sturgeon. “We have a mix of activities and projects that makes Indiana a hot spot for cybersecurity.”
