Articles by Robert A. Norton Ph.D.

AI-enhanced biosurveillance, integrated sensor networks, and intelligent analytics have been framed as critical enablers of safer, more efficient food systems. At the same time, the field has begun to acknowledge that the same tools that drive efficiency and predictive power can also be turned against the food system itself. 

This article examines the need to always engage subject matter experts in the analysis of AI results for food safety in the context of biosurveillance and cognitive security.

Most prominent among wartime threats for U.S. food, agriculture, and water systems is the probability of continuous and coordinated cyberattacks and other forms of sabotage.

This article discusses an Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) for biosurveillance, with the aim of ensuring food safety as part of a food defense program. ISACs collect, analyze, and disseminate actionable threat information to their industry members and provide members with tools to mitigate risks and enhance resiliency.

This article discusses biosurveillance intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for food processors, from a system design and operation standpoint.

Part 5 of this article series explores the mitigation of cognitive security threats in social media.

Part 4 of this article series explores techniques to identify and mitigate threats emerging from compromised business credentials.

Part 3 of this article series explores food safety and business cybersecurity (IT and OT), as well as cognitive security threat mitigation.

Coordination across the agricultural, food safety, cybersecurity, and emerging cognitive security landscape must become a top priority and be seamlessly integrated across the international and national biodefense enterprise. Part 2 of this column series explores food safety and business decision-making in the face of cognitive security threats.

Marking the intersection between human decision-making and biosecurity, deliberate attacks present risks like the poisoning or adulteration of food products, or cyberattacks targeting control or process systems. Collectively, "cognitive security"—or protecting the human decision-making process—needs to be a consideration for industry, government, and academia as an element of food security.