2025-08-04 –, Copa
Life-critical systems in public safety, healthcare, and emergency services are increasingly targeted by sophisticated state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Actors like Volt Typhoon are actively pre-positioning within U.S. critical infrastructure, with confirmed access to water, wastewater systems, power generation and distribution, and telecommunications networks. These groups pose a severe risk of cascading failures that would directly impact public health, emergency medical services, and hospital operations. This presentation dissects the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of these APTs, explores the potential real-world consequences of compromised water utilities and power infrastructure on community safety, and offers actionable strategies for building resilient defenses and unified incident response plans, even in resource-constrained environments. We will bridge the gap between traditional Incident Command Systems (ICS) and cyber incident response, providing a roadmap for communities to enhance their preparedness against these persistent and evolving threats.
State-sponsored actors like Volt Typhoon are no longer a theoretical threat; they are actively pre-positioned within U.S. critical infrastructure. Their strategic focus on water, power, and telecommunications systems is designed to trigger devastating cascading failures across healthcare, EMS, and 911 dispatch in times of crisis.
This presentation moves beyond a purely technical discussion to confront this sobering reality head-on. It addresses the critical operational disconnect between traditional Incident Command (ICS) and modern cyber response—a gap that adversaries are poised to exploit. We will explore realistic attack scenarios, tracing the domino effect from a single breach to a full-scale public safety catastrophe.
Attendees will be equipped with a proven, integrated framework for defense. Key highlights include strategies to unify cyber and physical command structures and a roadmap of pragmatic, high-impact security controls that are achievable even for under-resourced agencies. This talk delivers an actionable approach to building genuine cyber-physical resilience against the sophisticated threats defining the new public safety frontline.
Alex is an Information Security manager and architect with over 20 years of experience in corporate IT, site reliability, platform development and information security. Alex brings over 10 years of public safety, video SAAS and healthcare industry experience from his prior roles at RapidSOS, Vidyo and AbleTo. Currently, Alex is a Senior Platform Security Engineer at Oscar Health.
At RapidSOS, Alex led the creation of a cross-functional security team, managed a $25 million technology budget, and spearheaded innovative cloud and security solutions. Before joining RapidSOS, Alex helped build, scale and secure Vidyo’s cloud offering, which allowed developers, government, corporations and hobbyists to easily bring Vidyo conferencing into their own applications. Prior to Vidyo, Alex was AbleTo’s principle network architect where he was responsible for designing and building AbleTo’s virtual behavioral healthcare cloud platform.
Alex likes to spend his spare time volunteering as a technical adviser for the Progressive Coders Network; sharing and collaborating on innovative ideas which inspire a means to achieve racial, social, environmental and economic progress. Alex is also a Volunteer EMT, providing pre-hospital health care for the residents of his home town, Dumont, NJ.
