Cyber Risk Series
The Cyber Risk Series convenes experts from across industries and disciplines to examine cybersecurity through a multidisciplinary lens, connecting emerging technology, risk, and policy through keynotes, panels, and interactive discussion.
Cybersecurity of Water Critical Infrastructure
Water systems share many of the challenges we see across critical infrastructure: legacy operational technology, limited resources, and growing exposure to cyber threats. The Cyber Energy Center is examining the cybersecurity of water infrastructure, bringing together utilities, researchers, technology providers, and policy experts to understand the risks and identify practical solutions. This work is partially supported by a Pitt Momentum Fund and a Pitt Cyber Accelerator Grant.
2027 Transforming Cybersecurity Workshop
Be the first to be notified about next year's workshop by joining our distribution list. Please check out our past events.
Past Workshops
-
Transforming Cybersecurity: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Risk, Technology, and Policy
Join us for a workshop Transforming Cybersecurity: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Risk, Technology, and Policy on Tuesday August 12, 2025. This in-person workshop will be held at the University Center at the University of Pittsburgh and is sponsored by Pitt Cyber and the Cyber Energy Center.
Transforming Cybersecurity Agenda
Shareable Workshop Announcement
Cyber threats are becoming more complex and harder to predict. This creates risks that impact businesses, governments, and society. Traditional cybersecurity approaches, focused on addressing vulnerabilities, are no longer sufficient to address evolving threats.
This one-day workshop will bring together experts from different fields to explore how multidisciplinary research can enhance cybersecurity. A key focus will be on the role of new technologies, like certified software, in transforming risk. However, technology alone cannot address this problem. We need coordinating policies to improve cybersecurity and resilience.
This workshop will highlight how integrating technology and policy can reshape cybersecurity strategies, improve risk assessment, and ultimately reduce vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, and the broader economy.
-
Transforming Cybersecurity: Pittsburgh Researchers and Practitioners Convene to Tackle Critical Infrastructure Protection
2nd Transforming Cybersecurity Workshop
Transforming Cybersecurity: Pittsburgh Researchers and Practitioners Convene to Tackle Critical Infrastructure Protection
Tuesday, August 11, 2026 | 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM | Agenda
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
The University of Pittsburgh will host the 2nd Transforming Cybersecurity Workshop on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, bringing together experts from government, industry, academia, and research institutions for a full day of structured problem-solving at the intersection of cybersecurity technology and policy.
The in-person workshop is hosted by the Cyber Energy Center and Pitt Cyber, and co-organized by Daniel Cole and Erica Owen. It builds on the inaugural August 2025 workshop, a subsequent lunch series, and the Cyber Energy Center's ongoing research programming. Where last year's event focused on mapping the landscape of cybersecurity challenges, this year's workshop is designed to go further: moving from diagnosis to action.
The stakes are high. Critical infrastructure systems — water, energy, and industrial control networks — face growing cyber threats at a moment when the gap between what policy requires and what operators can actually implement remains stubbornly wide. Small and mid-sized utilities often lack the technical capacity, dedicated security staff, and vendor support to respond meaningfully to federal guidance. Meanwhile, demonstrated technologies like intrusion-tolerant SCADA systems have seen limited adoption beyond pilots, not because the technology fails, but because the regulatory and market conditions for scaling them do not yet exist.
The workshop opens with two featured speakers who bring complementary perspectives on the technology-policy interface. Chad Heitzenrater, senior information scientist at RAND, will present his recent research on how advanced AI is poised to reshape the economics of cybersecurity — arguing that AI offers defenders a structural advantage they have historically been unable to capitalize on, but only if the right investments in people, process, and technology are made. Ginger Wright, a leading practitioner in Cyber-Informed Engineering, will speak to the challenges of translating CIE principles into operational practice. CIE represents one of the most promising frameworks for building cyber resilience into infrastructure systems from the design stage forward, but its adoption has lagged despite strong federal endorsement — making it a central case study in the policy-technology gaps this workshop is designed to address.
The afternoon centers on working sessions built around real sector-specific problems. A structured panel drawing on political, economic, social, and technological perspectives will diagnose the most persistent barriers to cybersecurity adoption in the water and wastewater sector. Workshop organizers will then present a concrete proposed solution addressing the diagnosed problem. Participants will break into working groups, evaluating it through the lenses of desirability, feasibility, and viability.
This format reflects a core conviction behind the workshop series: meaningful progress on cybersecurity requires sustained cross-sector collaboration, and the most productive conversations happen when engineers, policymakers, operators, and researchers work through concrete problems together.
The workshop will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the University of Pittsburgh.
There is a $40 registration fee, which is waived for students. If the fee poses a barrier to your participation, please contact us at cyberenergy@pitt.edu, and we will be happy to work with you.
