Securing Virginia’s Operational Technology from Cyberattacks

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By Christian Crumlish, Guillermo Fisher, Colin Jenkel, and Nick Kotakis

This project recommends that the Commonwealth of Virginia expand its operational technology (OT) security certification to better protect Virginia’s computerized systems against growing cyber threats. State OT systems – the computer systems that run physical processes like water treatment and traffic signals – are uniquely vulnerable to threats. The rapid development of new artificial intelligence (AI) models has enabled bad actors to more easily hack into these systems, putting these computer-operated government infrastructures at risk. By expanding its existing OT security model and centralizing its security efforts across the state, this proposal would protect the systems Virginians rely on daily and set an example for other states looking to strengthen their OT cybersecurity.

Aspen Policy Academy alumni worked on this project with the Commonwealth of Virginia to propose a way to better protect its systems against cyber threats enabled by frontier AI models.

Download the Executive Summary

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