We are proud to announce Michael J. Assante as this year's recipient of the SANS Michael J. Assante ICS Security Award. Michael Assante is the SANS lead for Industrial Control System (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) security and also serves as the Director of Industrials and Infrastructure at SANS Institute. As a Senior Associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Strategic Technologies Program, Assante authors papers and provides views on policy issues.
Assante is a pioneer in ICS Cyber Security and worked with SANS Institute to establish the SANS ICS and SCADA Security Summit which is now in its 13th year. Together with Alan Paller, he helped focus attention on an area of cybersecurity that has the potential to affect critical infrastructure and human life and safety but was largely being unaddressed. Assante served as Vice President and CSO at American Electric Power, engaged in research to include the Idaho National Laboratory vulnerability of electric generators to destruction through remote cyber attack, and served as the first CSO at NERC. Government, intelligence, and military organizations have also relied on his leadership and counsel for more than 20 years. He has testified before the US Senate and House and was an initial member of the member of the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency.
Assante is a frequent guest at global security events, delivering presentations such as the 2017 RSA Keynote: Seven Most Dangerous New Attack Techniques, chairs the SANS ICS Security Summit which is now on its 13th year, and presenting co-authored reports such as Outpacing Cyber Threats - Priorities for Cybersecurity at Nuclear Facilities for the Nuclear Threat Institute. His work in ICS security has been widely recognized and was selected by his peers as the winner of Information Security Magazine's Security Leadership Award for his efforts as a strategic thinker. The RSA 2005 Conference awarded him its Outstanding Achievement Award in the practice of security within an organization.
Michael co-led the international steering committee that created the most widely respected industrial control systems security skills certification program, the GICSP, which is now held by over 1,300 practitioners in more than 30 countries. The GICSP ensures control systems engineers and IT security staff have the core skills needed for strengthening defenses against cyber-attacks, serving as a benchmarking tool for practitioners and hiring managers alike.