Bastazo Named a DOE SENTRY Award Recipient to Strengthen Grid Cybersecurity

Bastazo, the AI-driven cybersecurity company for critical infrastructure, has been named one of three recipients of a new award from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). The award is part of DOE's Securing ENergy Technology ResiliencY (SENTRY) initiative, which funds work addressing some of the most pressing risks facing the nation's power grid, including industrial control system cybersecurity and energy risk quantification.

The project will advance Bastazo's Cyber-Informed Engineering Risk Quantification Framework (CIE-RQF), which uses AI to help utilities simulate cyberattacks, understand their operational impact, and plan lasting improvements. Bringing together engineering documents, network information, and operator knowledge, Bastazo will model how digital and physical systems work together. These models will help operators test attack scenarios and compare the effectiveness of various cybersecurity measures and engineering protections, including safeguards for equipment that cannot readily be patched.

"We want to show utilities how an attack could cause real damage and which changes could prevent it," said Philip Huff, co-founder of Bastazo. "That includes engineering safeguards that protect equipment and services even when an attacker gains control."

For example, a utility could simulate harmful commands to equipment, then test whether tighter access controls or independent protective mechanisms, such as interlocks or physically enforced system limits, would better prevent or minimize the damage. Using Bastazo, operators will be able to repeat the analysis as systems and threats change and continually strengthen resilience.

Bastazo recently named Jennifer Davis as chief executive officer. Davis, a Northwest Arkansas business leader with two decades scaling technology and manufacturing businesses, took the role to grow Bastazo's commercial engine as demand for OT cybersecurity accelerates nationwide.

"As AI expands the ability to plan attacks, operators need an equally powerful way to plan remediation," said Jennifer Davis, CEO of Bastazo. "Our goal is to help critical infrastructure operators turn insight into practical improvements that protect operations and deliver lasting value."

The SENTRY initiative is led by DOE's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. ConnectWerx manages the project through a partnership established by DOE's Office of Technology Commercialization.