Right on time: Protecting critical infrastructure against threats – GPS World

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January 14, 2022

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Written by Editor

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Blog Editor’s Note: Interesting article building upon the idea of a national resilient timing architecture.

We have published two white papers on this idea – “A Resilient National Timing Architecture” in 2020, and “A Resilient National Architecture, Now for an RFP!” in 2021. In them we acknowledge the idea that such an architecture will need some monitoring, measurement, and management.

This paper expands upon that a bit.

Full disclosure: The paper’s author works for Microchip, an RNT Foundation corporate supporter.

Right on time: Protecting critical infrastructure against threats

Est. reading time: 5:30

January 1, 2022 – By Greg Wolff

Managing live sky and terrestrial time sources to protect critical infrastructure against cybersecurity threats

By Greg Wolff, Microchip Technology

Critical public infrastructure systems that rely on GNSS for reception of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) data have been identified by national security agencies across the globe as potential cybersecurity attack vectors. Late in 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the “Resilient PNT Conformance Framework” guidelines, providing a common reference point to help critical infrastructures become more resilient to PNT attack threats. Within the framework, a cybersecurity approach has been proposed.

PNT is the quiet backbone of everything but too many leaders still don't see the risk.

But you do. You understand the systems, the dependencies, the failure chains. That insight is rare — and it's exactly what your country needs right now. Contact your government leaders and industry decision-makers and tell them resilient PNT isn't a feature — it's the foundation everything else depends on.

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