Members of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology spoke on the convergence of physical and cyber security at the British Embassy June 2, 2015, at a meeting attended by representatives from the United States government, the British government, and critical infrastructure sectors including Energy and Finance.

The event featured a presentation by Danyetta Magana (President and Founder of Covenant Security Solutions and an ICIT Fellow) and David Evans (Founder of iSecure Global), who have formed a strategic partnership merging their expertise and technologies to address the convergence of physical and cybersecurity in an “internet of things” era. Attendees had the opportunity to learn innovative approaches to securing their critical infrastructure assets, with a focus on the energy, health, financial and critical manufacturing sectors which have a need for both on premise and digital security. Ms. Magana noted that, for example, the U.S. National power grid faces a physical or online attacks 1 in every 4 days. Their solution to combat the issue is SOFIA, a security platform which allows an organization the ability to manage physical and digital security controls from one tool.

Parham Eftekhari, a Sr. Fellow and Co-Founder at ICIT, gave a talk on the importance of strong cybersecurity legislation to ensuring the resiliency of critical infrastructure networks and emphasized the role that objective, non-partisan advisory for the legislative community plays in the legislative process. Mr. Eftekhari also reviewed the ICIT’s recent analysis of HR 1560: Protecting Cyber Networks Act, noting that with the passage of the USA Freedom Act by the Senate ICIT expects other cyber legislation to once again start being discussed by the House and Senate.

About ICIT: The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (www.ICITech.org) is a non-partisan think tank providing objective advising to the legislative and federal community on technology and cybersecurity issues. ICIT Fellows provide expertise on technology legislation as well as general thought leadership to Senate and House members, congressional staffers, federal agency leaders and the critical infrastructure community through ICIT briefings and other direct engagements.

For more information call 202-600-7250 x101 or email parham@icitech.org