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Energy and Environment Directorate

Paul Francik

Paul Francik

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
PO Box 999
Richland, WA 99352
(509) 375-6520

Biography

Paul is an Associate Cybersecurity Analyst who joined PNNL in 2019. He received his B.A.S. in Cybersecurity from Columbia Basin College, recognized by the National Security Agency and Homeland Security as a national center of academic excellence (CAE2Y) in the field of Information Assurance and Cyber Defense Education.

His current research efforts supported by the Department of Energy Solid-State Lighting program focus on building use cases, designing threat profiles, and conducting vulnerability assessments on Connected Lighting System technologies and other IoT applications.

Previous experience includes running his own business as a hairstylist, working as a chemical technologist on the Hanford site at the Waste Sampling and Characterization Facility, operating his own photography business and running social media campaigns while writing professional blogs for other businesses and individuals implementing strategies to improve their SEO rankings.

Paul has always been drawn to the arts and sciences and has managed to keep his feet in both disciplines, often combining technical skill and artful presentation.

Currently Paul is working with the Advanced Lighting Team on Connected Lighting Systems characterizing and assessing vulnerabilities in an effort to educate lighting industry stakeholders on how to make their systems more resilient and robust to outside threats.

Research Interests

  • Threat Profiling for various system architectures and physical spaces
  • Vulnerability assessments
  • Connected lighting systems
  • IoT devices and integrations
  • Social engineering
  • Physical Access Control

Education and Credentials

  • A.A., Columbia Basin College
  • B.A.S., Cyber Security, Columbia Basin College

Awards and Recognitions

  • 2019 Red Team member for DOE CyberForce competition focusing on the defensive/hardening nature of energy cyber infrastructure
  • 2019 Guest speaker at Columbia Basin College’s Presidential Leadership Breakfast.
  • 2015-2019 Columbia Basin College Foundation Scholarship recipient

PNNL Publications

2023

  • Francik P.D., T.D. Ashley, and M.E. Poplawski. 2023. "Connecting the Dots: An Assessment of Cyber-risks in Networked Building and Municipal Infrastructure Systems." In Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2023), January 3-6, 2023, Maui, HI, 6108-6117. Honolulu, Hawaii:University of Hawaii at Manoa. PNNL-SA-175865.

2022

  • Bays R.M., J.H. Bigler, A.E. Chastain, P.D. Francik, C.L. Himes, E.E. Lancaster, and D.E. Nodine, et al. 2022. FIC Vulnerability Profile. PNNL-32881. Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. FIC Vulnerability Profile
  • Bigler J.H., A.E. Chastain, P.D. Francik, C.L. Himes, D.E. Nodine, E.E. Lancaster, and P.J. O'Connell, et al. 2022. FIC Threat Profile: Provided by Shamrock Cyber. PNNL-33190. Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. FIC Threat Profile: Provided by Shamrock Cyber
  • Francik P.D., M.E. Poplawski, S. Gourisetti, P.J. O'Connell, C.R. Younkin, T.D. Ashley, and G.E. Seppala. 2022. A Cybersecurity Threat Profile for a Connected Lighting System. PNNL-31958. Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. A Cybersecurity Threat Profile for a Connected Lighting System

Energy and Environment

Core Research Areas

Contacts