INCS-CoE Securing Critical Infrastructure Seminar

The International Cyber Security Center of Excellence (INCS-CoE), of which UMBC is a charter member, holds online seminars to explore the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, and safety. The next session takes place via Zoom from 7:00-8:45am ET on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, and consists of two presentations, with time for questions after each. Register here to get the link.

Monty Abbas, Virginia Tech
Cyber-Resilient Emergency Response Systems: Integrating Digital Twins, Zero-Trust Architecture, and Reinforcement Learning for Critical Infrastructure Protection

This seminar presents a cyber-resilient framework for emergency vehicle preemption systems that combines digital twins, Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA), and reinforcement learning. Using an agent-based transportation digital twin, we evaluate the impacts of cyberattacks and demonstrate how adaptive AI-driven policies can identify malicious requests while maintaining efficient emergency operations. The work illustrates how intelligent cyber defense strategies can enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure systems.

Stephen Wolthusen, RHUL
Abstraction in Critical Infrastructures Considered Dangerous

Most critical infrastructures involve (cyber-) physical components (CPS) and hence must interact with these through sensors and actuators, typically while also adhering to real-time and reliability requirements. At the same time, modern CPS architectures will almost invariably have at least indirect connectivity to outside networks and are also susceptible to supply chain attacks, both of which can result in the presence of adversarial activity within CPS. In this talk, we argue that the design and underlying standards for CPS do not (yet) fully take into account such adversarial action and exhibit unforced vulnerabilities not only at the implementation level but at the levels of protocols and their interactions.