NYU will soon be home to a new federally funded center dedicated to the protection of America’s electric power infrastructure. The new center will be one of several regional cybersecurity hubs established by the Department of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) to promote and support innovative research, and to train the energy workforce in cybersecurity skills. 

According to an announcement from CESER, the NYU team will lead a project called “Innovations in Securing the Power Grid by Integrated Research and Education” or INSPIRE. The research team will “focus on addressing gaps in cybersecurity that arise from integrating components into the electric grid, such as electric vehicle charging infrastructure and distributed energy resources.” The team is charged with developing an anomaly detection system that “can be used on the grid and its distributed assets to monitor for malicious cyber activities in real-time.”

In announcing NYU’s addition to the project, Puesh M. Kumar, Director of CESER, observed,“Universities are pivotal partners to help us build a more secure and resilient energy sector. I am thrilled that NYU will be joining the network of university-based cybersecurity centers to help tackle the growing cyber threats to U.S. energy systems.” New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand also praised the initiative, adding, “Our energy sector is a target for cyber actors from around the world.The work NYU will do is critical to ensuring that advancements in the electric grid are done with a cyber workforce aware of and able to address cyber threats. I look forward to seeing the work done by NYU in this important project.” 

For more information about the project, go to https://www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/nyu-selected-university-based-cybersecurity-research-and-training.