Powergrid Cybersecurity Town Hall: Breaking Down Barriers for Better Security

March 29, 2011 - PRLog -- Clackamas, OR - National Electric Sector CyberSecurity Organization (NESCO), a Department of Energy funded program of EnergySec, announces the first of its kind town hall event allowing electric sector leaders to discuss important cybersecurity issues regarding the North American power grid.  The focus of this event is to overcome obstacles to information sharing, explore new ideas and take a fresh look at an old problem.   “Removing the obstacles impairing our ability to share more actionable information, faster, and to a wider audience is necessary to raise the security bar in our industry." says Patrick Miller, EnergySec President and CEO.  

William N. Bryan keynote speaker and panelist, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary, Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration in the US Dept. of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.  Brandon Dunlap, moderator, is the Managing Director of Research at Brightfly.  Maarten Van Horenbeeck, panelist, is the Senior Program Manager in the Ecosystem Strategy group at the Microsoft Security Response Center (MRSC).  Deborah Bryant, panelist, is the Public Sector Communities Manager at Oregon State University Open Source Lab.  Michael Hamilton, panelist, is the Chief Information Security Officer at the City of Seattle.  Jim Brenton, panelist, is the ERCOT - Principal, Regional Security Coordinator for the ERCOT Region.  

For more information, logistic and speaker bios http://www.energysec.org/town-hall-ercot

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ABOUT NESCO
The National Electric Sector Cybersecurity Organization (NESCO) brings together domestic and international experts, developers, and users who can assess and test the security of novel technology, architectures, and applications. NESCO is a place to share information, best practices, resources, and solutions between domestic and international electric sector participants. We encourage key electric sector supplier and vendor support and interaction. This collaboration combines our collective knowledge, capabilities, and experience to protect the electric grid and enhance integration of smart grid technologies that are adequately protected against cyber attacks.  NESCO is a DOE funded program of EnergySec.  More information is available at http://www.energysec.org/nesco

ABOUT ENERGYSEC
EnergySec began in 2003 as an informal organization of security professionals within the electric industry interested in discussing common security practices, challenges and principles relevant to the protection of their company’s assets and the power grid at large.  Since that time, participation has grown and it is now the forum for information security, physical security, audit, disaster recovery and business continuity professionals for energy industry asset owners with members from all regions of North America.

EnergySec’s mission is to assure that security practices, ideas and principles are shared among energy organizations. To drive security excellence among participants through collaboration, careful analysis of security issues, near-instantaneous and confidential information-sharing where identity of discussants remains undisclosed, and through extensive outreach programs.  More information is available at http://www.energysec.org

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NESCO brings together electric sector professionals who can test the security of technology and share information and solutions. This collaboration combines our collective knowledge and experience to protect the electric grid against cyber attacks.