INL’s Cybercore Integration Center works to secure the operation of public infrastructure for tomorrow, next year and beyond – East Idaho News

Photo: INL Manager of Strategic Government Communications Ethan Huffman stands in front of a to-scale version of a water purification inside the Cybercore Integration Center; Video: Members of the Cybercore Integration Center team, as well as interns and student campers, discuss the work being done. | Photo by Kalama Hines, EastIdahoNews.com; Video by Jordan Wood, EastIdahoNews.com

IDAHO FALLS — Nearly 40 separate buildings make up the Idaho National Laboratory’s Idaho Falls campus, and each used for a different field of research, development and application.

One of those buildings is the Cybercore Integration Center, which, according to the INL website, “enables partnerships across federal agencies, private industry and university partners to secure control systems from cyberthreats.”

The analysts who work there, though, do not focus on everyday cyberthreats, like people trying to steal your Aunt Emma’s identity.

Instead, their focus, among other things, is operational technology.

‘Our mission is to protect the nation’

In other words, the scientists and analysts working within Cybercore are looking for ways to best secure infrastructure operations — water purification systems, power grids, etc. — from the threats of today and tomorrow.

“Our mission is to protect the nation,” said Megan Kommers, the department manager for one of the analytic groups handling that work. “We are national homeland security within the Cybercore Integration Center, that part of INL. We are here, and we know that our actions help defend the nation. We help maintain its economic vitality and we help provide those services that are public and our citizens depend on for health and security.”

The work done by people like Kommers and her team of analysts is very large scale, according to Ethan Huffman, INL’s manager of strategic government communications.

“What we’re really most concerned about is maybe not a threat that would, say, shut down a water treatment plant for a couple of minutes or a couple of hours. What we’re really worried about is a threat that would, maybe, stop the production of clean water for days, weeks, months or even longer,” Huffman said.

Cybercore analysts work with to-scale models of operational water treatment plants, power plants and similar systems, down to the computers used to operate them. As Huffman explained, the ease of having everything run remotely comes with the threat of “bad actors” hijacking that remote operation.

“Several years ago, we came to the realization that, given enough time and resources, anything digital can be hacked into,” he said. “So we’ve taken an approach … how do you make devices like these that are operating infrastructure systems, how do you make them secure by design?”

Without properly functioning infrastructure systems, the city, state and even country would grind to a halt.

Yet, despite the importance of Cybercore’s work, both Huffman and Konners said they are experiencing difficulties recruiting new analysts.

Reaching out to students

To combat the staffing shortages, INL has launched a series of camps for high school students with an interest in cybersecurity, run in large part of college interns who are also studying to enter the field. The purpose of those camps is two-pronged: to improve understanding of cybersecurity among high schoolers and to extend a recruiting arm to area youths with an interest in the field.

The camps, led by INL’s Workforce Development Project Coordinator Jana Richens, have been running for nearly a decade now. This year is the first that INL alone is running them rather than in partnership with the University of Idaho and College of Eastern Idaho.

“The goal is to get kids interested in cyber(security), through fun activities and exercises. We kind of gamify cyber(security),” Richens

Richens and her team of interns employ the use of Raspberry Pi technology as part of the gamifying process.

Students are taught to use Raspberry Pis, which are small, single-board computers, to build, manipulate and control other devices.

“It teaches the relationship between cyber and the physical system,” Richens said.

William Waetje, a third-year intern at INL and the resident “Raspberry Pi expert,” said that the device is similar to the operational board of a cell phone.

“It is real-world technology that you can actually work with for fun,” he said. “It allows us to interface between computers and the real world.”

Tabitha Burdick, a junior at Hillcrest High School, recently completed her second summer at the INL cybersecurity summer camp. She told EastIdahoNews.com that she enjoyed the camp the first time around. She jumped at the chance at going back when she learned that she would have the opportunity to expand her learning — with exercises and assignments different from those handed out during her first camp.

During her two times participating at the camps, Burdick said, she got firsthand experience using Raspberry Pis and “breadboards” — used for simulating and prototyping technology — to create and protect technological functions, like running a light show.

Waetje, who began his journey with INL as a camper, says the gamifying of learning works.

Now, not only is he an intern at Cybercore, but he is also a University of Idaho student studying computer systems information with an emphasis in cybersecurity. His plan is to work in cybersecurity, perhaps as an analyst with INL. The same can be said of several interns who make up Richens’ team.

The work being done inside the Cybercore Integration Center will depend on today’s students to carry on tomorrow.

“The research that we do is focusing on securing the technologies and making them more resilient,” Kommers said. “So when you turn your water on, you know that it’s clean and safe. So when you turn your light switch on, you know you’re going to have reliable power. When you’re going on a transportation system, you know it’s going to be a safe and smooth ride. And that is really what we’re focusing on, making sure that the devices that are in the systems today are safe, but then also developing methodologies so that we’re building new systems that keep cybersecurity and vulnerabilities in mind, so we have great engineering platforms for the future installations of infrastructure.”