Our infrastructure is fragile. We depend on electricity, natural gas, cable and telecommunications, and water. Communities depend on the healthcare, emergency response, railroads, air transport, roadways, mass transit, news, and the supply chain organizations. Additional technologies, like self-driving cars, smart highways and green energy will mean more interdependence. The infrastructure has evolved as demand grew and technologies developed. It was never just restarted anew. It evolved based from its original roots. Cyber communications are key for efficient data collection and operational control. The dependence on cyber is going to grow.

Despite the importance, the infrastructure reliability cannot be 100%. The required strengthening and redundancies would be impractical. Whole new categories of technology based threats means the original system foundations are vulnerable. Rebuilding entire systems without these weakness would be more effective than adding patches, but at a cost of billions or trillions of dollars. And the systems can’t be future proofed.

Mr. James Azar, CSO & Co-Founder, CyberHub USA, Bryan Kane, Director of Sales & Marketing, Encrypted Grid, and Brian Penny, CTO, Encrypted Grid will address the June 14th hybrid face to face and live online monthly meeting of the Georgia Society of Professional Engineers Atlanta Metro Chapter. They will present on Securing Critical infrastructure from Ransomware and Nation States at the Wild Wing Café, 4788 Ashford Dunwoody Rd, Dunwoody, GA and online via the GSPE video channel, www.youtube.com/GSPEng.

The Colonial pipeline attack highlighted the challenges to critical infrastructure and the need to review how exposed our systems are. Security by design should the critical move at the moment.

The face to face gathering will start at 6:00, the online presentation will start at 7:00. Online participants will be able to use the chat feature to pose questions during the live presentation. The meeting presentation will be recorded and available for later viewing at no cost. This presentation, like the previous presentations, will qualify for a required engineering professional development hour (PDH). Currently registered professional engineers, those engineers aspiring to become PEs, and others engaged in engineering would benefit from the presentation. “It’s no longer ‘If.’ It’s ‘When.’ So how do you handle it when you get hacked?”, James Azar says. Anyone interested in organizational improvements and members of the general public are welcomed to learn about technology, engineering and public welfare.

    Both F2F or Online are FREE.    Must RSVP for in person by 6/11 5pm [email protected].

Mr. Azar is a self-made entrepreneur in Cybersecurity and Financial Technology. James hosts the country’s fastest growing cybersecurity podcast, The CyberHub Engage Podcast and also Goodbye Privacy, a new noteworthy privacy podcast. He understands the cybersecurity challenges facing many organizations and the importance of properly strategizing towards solving those obstacles. He co-founded CyberHub USA to help organizations address the many developing threats and challenges. Mr. Azar also served on the Board of Advisors for the National Technology Security Coalition’s (NTSC) and currently serves on the, Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA) Atlanta Chapter and Tech400 in Georgia as well as several non-profits. He is a frequent speaker on cyber security issues at civic and educational events.

Brian Penny is a musician and audio engineer. His unusual proclivity for sound design and computation compelled him to combine his artistic fervor with mathematics. While tampering with analog to digital convertors to manipulate sound he realized that his method was altering the length of the waveforms. From this came a patentable of real-time encryption. With a business partner he established Encryption Grid and serves as its CTO. Encrypted Grid is on a mission to prevent Rogue Hackers or Nation States from causing regional or national blackouts across North America.

Bryan Kane was also a co-founder of Encryption Grid and serves as the Director of Sales & Marketing. He uses a simple approach to his business endeavors: networking and understanding people. Additionally, Bryan contributes to business development efforts for GUM studios, a film production studio based in NYC. He has had previous collaborations in the technology and entertainment arena.