Lecture Series 2025 - IEEE SMC Italy Chapter - Securing tomorrow, one problem at a time A Retrospective on 15 Years of Collaboration in Critical Infrastructure Protection

#critical-infrastructure #protection #security #safety

Speaker: Prof. Tiago Cruz - University of Coimbra

Abstract: Many Critical Infrastructures (CI) rely on Operational Technologies (OT) that were originally developed decades ago—an era when security concerns were minimal, and isolation was considered sufficient protection. Security was a distant afterthought, until problems started to appear.

It took a series of incidents to shift this perspective. Over time, growing concerns from end-users, manufacturers, and regulatory bodies helped elevate security to a critical requirement, on equal footing with reliability and safety.  Nevertheless, this trend has not evenly spread across the entire OT ecosystem – there is still much to be done, with legacy infrastructures being among the most worrying risks, albeit far from being the sole one.

This lecture will explore 15 years of collaborative research in CI protection, highlighting the joint efforts of Portuguese and Italian teams in addressing OT security needs, in many cases anticipating developments that later became mainstream. We’ll also reflect on how these outcomes have evolved and the enduring value of international cooperation in the face of growing cyber threats.