Event
"Smart Grid Security: Myth or Reality," A Special Talk by Brian Lenane, SRA Intl.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
2:00 p.m.
A.V. Williams, Rm. 2460
Ted Knight
301 405 3596
teknight@umd.edu
A Special Talk sponsored by the Maryland Cyber Security Club and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
"Smart Grid Security: Myth or Reality"
Brian Lenane
Senior Principal/Strategic Initiatives
SRA International
Abstract:
Making the electric grid smarter will enable the integration of renewable energy sources, to support electric vehicles and to provide consumers with energy information and much more. Interconnecting and digitizing more of the control and power elements the electric grid creates new security challenges.
"The smart grid is by definition going to be less secure than the existing grid," said Andy Bochman, founder of the Smart Grid Security Blog. "That's what happens when you greatly interconnect something that previously used isolation as one of its primary security strategies. It's going to be less secure and more people from more diverse backgrounds will be able to reach parts of it ... even if we do a great job of securing it with rock solid security technologies and policies."
Is the situation really this bleak?
Bio:
At SRA International, Brian Lenane is responsible for leading the development of the Smart Grid and Green IT practices serving the federal government and other customers. His recent activities include:
- Strategic Initiatives: Responsible for the development of methodologies, business plan, client accounts and business development for Green IT and Energy/Resource Information management offerings
- Senior Advisor, EPA Business Intelligence project, SME to help the team resolve client, budget and technical issues in the delivery of services. The BI product was to provide to EPA to make reporting simpler and more accurate for the Energy Star building program.
- Senior Advisor, OPM and EPA, Led Green IT assessments of the SRA operated data centers to determine efficiencies and energy savings.
- Active participant in the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Group, Grid Wise Alliance, DHS ICSWG and other groups
- Presenter and panel member participant at smart grid and energy related conferences including the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC), Connectivity Week, IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) and Military Operation Research Society (MORS)
He was an early member of the leadership team at Nexus Energy Software, now Aclara Software. Aclara provides smart grid solutions to utilities including AMI (STAR & TWACS), meter data management system, load forecasting, settlement systems, outage management, demand response, revenue protection, and several software applications including hosted customer portals, meter asset management, customer care, rate analysis, carbon footprint calculator, and complex billing systems. He has worked directly with more than 80 of the largest utility companies in North America. He has also worked with ESCOs, energy service providers and other energy companies.
For the past 25 years, he has worked closely with executives, chief information officers and chief security officers of Fortune 1000 firms in a senior level customer relationship management capacity, championing a wide array of strategic initiatives, from developing enterprise wide IT strategies including hosted solutions, cyber security, data center operations and strategic development and implementation of all aspects of IT infrastructure management. As an executive leader, he has driven financial planning, operational performance, including efficiency of IT infrastructure.
He has received an MBA from the Wharton Graduate School of Business, a BA in Biology from Franklin & Marshall College, and earned a CAGS from Harvard University.
