Readiness of Cybersecurity in the USA Energy Industry

Cybersecurity Readiness shows an organizations ability of applicant and application to be able to fully utilize computing resources through behaviors (e.g., training employees), practices, and processes, while managing risk through efficient controls in order to prevent, detect, and respond to outage scenarios using audit and assessment techniques. An evaluation of cybersecurity readiness for the USA energy industry assists industry decision makers to comprehensively assess readiness gaps for prioritizing a risk-based cybersecurity implementation plan. There is a currently a lack of a Multi-Criteria Decision Model (MCDM) to assist decision makers to comprehensively assess Readiness of Cybersecurity in the USA Energy Industry.\nThe Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) was created using a multidisciplinary research approach, studying academic principles and security expert approaches including frameworks, models, and theories. Research was then conducted through expert participants qualitative evaluations and quantitative scoring. The HDM model identifies common factors that have major impact, assesses readiness, and points out where corrective actions are needed through case studies and scenarios. The model prepares an organization to implement cybersecurity criteria with the goal of reducing the time to recover the electric grid in order to provide stability, if and when, an incident happens. This dissertation verifies and validates the previous literature reviews and interviews.\nThe findings and output of the dissertation has created artifacts designed to meet energy sector specific readiness and thus resilience needs. An organization must be able to resume operations, from attacks and outages, in order to be considered resilient. Readiness is also important because remediation will lead to reliable operations which contributes to higher financial returns overall.