UConn leads cybersecurity initiative for energy systems in Northeast 

The University of Connecticut is leading a new cybersecurity initiative that unites institutions and experts from around the Northeast to develop and educate students on cybersecurity for energy systems. 

The initiative at UConn is one of six university-based cybersecurity centers that received an endowment from the U.S. Department of Energy to address gaps in energy security research. According to UConn Today, UConn’s project, called CyberCARED, will receive $2.5 million in federal funding over the next two years, along with $1.1 million from industry stakeholders. 

CyberCARED will be run out of the Eversource Energy Center. Junbo Zhao, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and associate director of the Eversource Energy Center, said that the first goal of the project was to unite experts from the field and different universities around the Northeast. 

“At the end of the day, we are going to have a unified platform so that we can use it for further research, development or education,” Zhao said. 

Another goal that Zhao explained was strengthening education around energy system security. He said that although many universities had cybersecurity courses, there were no major programs targeted at cybersecurity for energy systems. 

“The second goal is really to build the colloquiums for our region. At this moment, we don’t have the colloquiums in terms of cybersecurity for energy systems,” Zhao said. 

According to Zhao, the center also wants to build a testbed to simulate real cyberattacks for training and research. 

“We can also use the testbed to educate a student. For example, we ask the student to implement different cyber attacks or design different types of detect chain response approaches, and they’ll be tested there,” Zhao said. “And in such a way, they can gain hands-on experience.” 

UConn is partnering with industry stakeholders like Eversource to involve energy security experts in the cybersecurity program, according to Zhao. 

“Eversource is providing a lot of technical support and experts contributing to developing some innovative technologies that can solve today and tomorrow’s challenging problems,” Zhao said 

The initiative will run from the Eversource Energy Center in Storrs. It is currently scheduled to launch in early May, according to UConn Today. 

The CyberCARED Center also aims to have certification courses where people can learn skills that will be useful for their jobs, according to Zhao. 

“We can have three or four courses on cyber security for energy systems. Once they take the courses, they will gain the fundamental knowledge and they will use it, hopefully someday for their job,” Zhao said. 

Zhao also said that the CyberCARED Center is looking forward to fostering student involvement in order to ultimately “develop the workforce needed for the region.” The center aims to hold workshops that will ideally be available to students all over the Northeast. 

“We are going to have industry engagement workshops so that we can have those industries come to UConn, and we talk about the challenges and what will be the solutions, what will be the roadmaps,” Zhao said. 

Zhao said that UConn has the right background and connections to spearhead this initiative in the Northeast. 

“We have the tradition for doing cybersecurity, we have the tradition and experts for doing energy resiliency and security, so I believe we are quite unique to lead this center in our region,” Zhao said.