FirstEnergy CSO discusses nation-state threats at SANS ICS Security Summit

Brian Harrell, Vice President and Chief Security Officer at FirstEnergy, spoke at the 2026 SANS ICS Security Summit. He told attendees that defenders should assume an adversary may already be inside the environment. Harrell is joining a roundtable to discuss what critical infrastructure organizations should prioritize before a nation-state campaign tests their plans. The webcast addresses how organizations can keep operating when expectations for communication availability and rapid recovery no longer hold.

The discussion highlights the increasing threat of nation-state actors targeting critical infrastructure, such as electricity and water systems. This emphasizes the need for critical infrastructure organizations to adapt their cybersecurity strategies to maintain operations under degraded conditions.