Two CIB analysts were invited to participate in a conference held at FBI Columbia, where they presented their research on critical infrastructure to an audience of security professionals.

Last summer the CIB analysts, Chief Operations Officer Scott Boster and Cyber/Transnational Senior Analyst Nathan Wynkoop, worked alongside China Desk Analyst Katelyn Bredow to produce a comprehensive overview of critical infrastructure in the state of South Carolina. The resulting report, entitled “Critical Infrastructure in South Carolina: An Overview”, was published in October 2023. It outlines the critical infrastructure facilities throughout the state and explains how they are internally interconnected and externally integrated with multiple critical infrastructure networks across the nation. It also highlights the integral role that South Carolina’s critical infrastructure plays to the state’s economic growth, job creation, technological advancements, and public safety and security.

In November of this year, the report was adopted as an official publication of the South Carolina chapter of the InfraGard Members Alliance, a Federal Bureau of Investigation-led initiative that helps protect the critical infrastructure of the United States. The report will now be be distributed to the chapter’s statewide membership. Additionally, InfraGard invited the CIB analysts to attend its 2023 Winter Conference, which was held on December 7 at the FBI’s brand-new field office (pictured) in Columbia, South Carolina.

Two of the three authors of the report, Scott Boster and Nathan Wynkoop, were able to join CIB Faculty Mentor Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis in attending the conference. Scott and Nathan also presented the report to the conference attendees, and discussed plans for a future project that will involve the production of a periodical open-source intelligence report with information about emerging threats to critical infrastructure in South Carolina.