ABOUT THIS EVENT
Establishing A Cyber Safety Standard of Care for the Built Environment
A select gathering of academia, professional organizations, infrastructure owners, and the Nation’s leading companies providing engineering and cybersecurity services committed to protecting human safety in an automated society.
A CALL TO ACTION
Emerging Global Need for a Cyber Safety Standard of Care
The rapid adoption of connected technologies across facilities and infrastructure is enhancing operational efficiency, user experience, sustainability, and security—spanning homes, buildings, transportation, healthcare, manufacturing, and consumer devices.
As information technology (IT) converges with operational technology (OT) to form cyber-physical systems (CPS), these integrated environments offer powerful new efficiencies and productivity. However, they also introduce novel risks and vulnerabilities, such as the overreliance of unsecured operational automation, which provides bad actors new disruption vectors with more exploitation pathways directly threatening public health, safety, and essential services.
Recent cyberattacks targeting our Nation’s critical infrastructure sectors – water systems, power grids, ports, pipelines, and transportation systems – have prompted multiple federal safety warnings.
These alerts underscore the urgent need for private sector owners and operators to invest in robust cyber protections that safeguard the public interest.
The global engineering and construction community must act now to establish formal Standards of Care for cyber safety to provide private sector owners with a set of foundational risk mitigation principles guiding the planning, design, construction, and operational phases of all future projects within the built environment.
The 2026 Cyber Safety Summit will convene subject matter experts and thought leaders to define what constitutes “reasonable knowledge, technical competence, and care” practiced within cybersecurity and control systems engineering.
Participants will break out into working groups to propose core requirements for internships, examinations, and admissions criteria that could form the basis for a future professional license in cyber safety design.
At the conclusion of the event, the CyberSafetySummit will formally present the consortium’s recommended standardized cyber safety elements relevant to networked, control systems engineering, and operational automation design to the NCEES Principles and Practice of Engineering Examination – Control Systems CBT Specifications for inclusionary consideration.
Additionally, selected technical papers will be presented to showcase engineering applications and best practices that enhance cyber safety within critical infrastructure and facility systems.
Mission
Join a day of collaboration on cyber safety standards for engineering, construction and facility management professionals.
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The A/E/C industry across all infrastructure sectors incorporate cyber safety practices into their body of knowledge, including engineering minimum requirements and specifications, for infrastructure systems that incorporate digital controls.
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Engineers and technicians fully evaluate the potential for disruption and harm from cyber -attacks when designing and integrating digital components into systems.
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Control systems are chosen and integrated into physical systems only when an assessment of human safety risks has been completed, and the organization accepts any residual risk after being accurately informed of potential consequences.
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Effective and continuing communication is established among owners, operators, designers, maintainers, device manufacturers, and system integrators to support risk-informed decisions concerning the use of control systems in critical infrastructure during the design and construction phase.
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Future automation and connected technologies are designed and certified to be cyber resilient.
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Cyber risk management early in the system lifecycle results in a more effective and efficient application of cybersecurity controls during design and construction, and enabling resilient operation of critical functions over the life cycle of a facility or system.
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The broad range of stakeholders responsible for critical infrastructure are appropriately informed about cyber risks and have a culture of accountability for cyber safety.
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Engineered systems are more cost-effective to operate securely over their life cycle, and security controls are more effective because they were built in at the design phase.
Article: The Imperative for the Connected Built Environment
As cyber and physical systems converge, a critical gap in engineering responsibility is putting real-world infrastructure—and public safety—at risk.
In The Imperative for the Connected Built Environment, Lucian Niemeyer and Dr. Georgianna Shea outline why cyber safety must be recognized as a core engineering function.