Auburn’s Frank Cilluffo testifies before Senate committee on threats to public transportation
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Frank Cilluffo, director of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, testified Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in a hearing titled “Threats Posed by State-Owned and State Supported Enterprises to Public Transportation.”
“The threats to public transportation posed by state-owned and state-supported enterprises is a matter of national significance, as the issue bears on U.S. national and economic security, which are inextricably intertwined,” said Cilluffo in the hearing.
He also told the committee, whose members include U.S. Sens. Richard Shelby and Doug Jones, both of Alabama, “let me speak plainly: The chief threat comes from China and certainly includes the sale and provision of railway cars to U.S. transit systems—but the threat also extends far beyond, to much more than the transportation sector alone.”
Cilluffo is a member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, which will release a report March 11 that will, as he said, “lay a clear path forward to increase the effectiveness of U.S. government collaboration, resilience of critical infrastructure security, security of the cyber ecosystem and public-private partnership.”
Cilluffo is also a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council, and he’s routinely called upon to advise senior officials in the executive branch, U.S. Armed Services and state and local governments on an array of matters related to national and homeland security strategy and policy. In addition to briefing Congressional committees and their staffs, he has publicly testified before Congress on numerous occasions, serving as a subject matter expert on policies related to cyber threats, counterterrorism, security and deterrence, weapons proliferation, organized crime, intelligence and threat assessments, emergency management and border and transportation security. Similarly, he works with U.S. allies and organizations such as NATO and Europol. He has presented at a number of bi-lateral and multi-lateral summits on cybersecurity and countering terrorism, including the U.N. Security Council.
The full hearing can be found below. Cilluffo’s testimony begins at the 57:29 mark.
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Media interested in this story can contact Communications Director Preston Sparks at (334) 844-9999 or preston.sparks@auburn.edu.
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