News

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of almost $1.6 million to a team of cybersecurity experts from the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and the University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid (TCIPG) project. The three-year effort will focus on improving the security of critical infrastructure such as electrical grids and other utilities.

Ameren Illinois today opened a new $3.3 million testing facility that will help facilitate research and development of smart grid technologies and support the state’s economic development and job creation goals. The Technology Applications Center (TAC) will offer collaborative opportunities between ITI researchers and the utility.

ITI hosted a summer school on formal methods for the science of security last week, bringing together professionals and students working in the area of cyber security.

Klara Nahrstedt, the Ralph M. and Catherine V. Fisher Professor in the Department of Computer Science, will serve as acting director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL).

In the last four years, solar generation in the U.S. has more than doubled, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In that same time, the costs of solar power systems have dropped by 80 percent. As interest in solar energy is increasing, the Illinois Center for a Smarter Electric Grid (ICSEG) is helping lead renewable energy research with the new installation of an experimental solar array on the south side of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.

An estimated 137.4 million cyber attacks took place in 2012 alone, according to an IBM report, and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has forewarned of a coming “cyber Pearl Harbor.” And the need for more trustworthy systems is only likely to grow, as we increasingly rely on information technology to power our most critical infrastructure.

Twenty years ago, most people didn’t own a cell phone, let alone a phone that could connect to the Internet, take photos or memorize voice recordings. The computer chips in these old phones, or other devices such as appliances, cars or even power plants, weren’t attractive targets to cyber intruders; however, as these devices have advanced, they have become a prime target for malicious attacks.

Jana Diesner, an assistant professor at the iSchool, or Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has joined the Information Trust Institute.

When the loss of a single power line in Arizona caused the September 2011 blackouts in Southern California and the Southwest, nearly seven million people were left without power for over 11 hours. The outage caused major traffic congestion and sewage pumping station failures, as well as resulting in millions of dollars of losses to restaurants and grocery stores.