The Israel-U.S. Initiative on Cybersecurity Research and Development for Energy is helping both countries hone energy grid cyber defense capabilities
Yang Weng, an assistant professor of electrical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, is leading a cybersecurity collaboration that forms a bridge between American and Israeli organizations to better both countries’ capabilities to defend against cyberattacks on energy grid and water systems.
The Israel-U.S. Initiative on Cybersecurity Research and Development for Energy, or ICRDE, was born from a proposal Weng submitted two years ago to the Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, or the BIRD Foundation. The center was approved and formally began work in 2021.
Arizona State University leads the American side of the coalition, with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev taking the lead on the Israeli side. The ICRDE also includes both commercial and educational partners in both countries, which the involved partners say face an increasing amount of cyberattacks.
“Our ICRDE collective efforts enable the design and development of next-generation cybersecurity solutions that would detect, identify and reject cyber threats, enhancing the reliability and resiliency of energy infrastructures,” says Weng, a faculty member in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools.