The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Siemens Energy Inc. recently announced a new collaboration to develop an industrial cybersecurity Center of Excellence.
“The first-of-its-kind industrial cybersecurity monitoring, research and innovation center will focus on detecting and defending against cyberattacks on critical infrastructure owned and operated by NYPA, the largest state-owned electric utility in the nation,” NYPA said.
NYPA’s Board of Trustees approved the creation of the cybersecurity center at a July 28 meeting.
“As we digitize every aspect of our generation and transmission operations, we need to be sure that our cybersecurity program is ironclad,” said Gil Quiniones, NYPA President and CEO. “This venture with Siemens enables both parties to bring their best thinking and experience to the table as we together test and develop state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions that meet our requirements and protect our assets now and well into the future.”
As part of the effort, NYPA’s Advanced Grid Laboratory for Energy and Siemens Energy will identify gaps in market ready solutions and establish test bed and demonstration pilots using Siemens Energy technologies and processes, in both laboratory and real-world settings.
The announcement “is the first step in bringing together a coalition of public sector, private industry and academic partnerships that will build core capabilities needed to identify new and existing cyber threats, adopt new technologies to protect digital infrastructure and close the industry’s talent-gap,” NYPA said.
“Successful solutions have the potential to be deployed and commercialized at other public and private organizations that operate critical infrastructure systems in the state of New York and beyond.”
For more information about the Cybersecurity Center for Excellence, visit the AGILe Lab page on NYPA’s website.
