Protecting Americas Critical Infrastructures

"In summary, all of us need to recognize that the cyber revolution brings us into a new age as surely as the industrial revolution did two centuries ago. Now, as then, our continued security requires a reordering of national priorities and new understanding about our respective roles in support of the national goals. The relationships that have stood us in such good stead through the end of the second millennium must give way to new ones better suited to the third."--Page xi.

The Commission spent 15 months evaluating America's critical infrastructures, assessing their vulnerabilities, & deliberating assurance alternatives. The nation is so dependent on our infrastructures that we must view them through a nat. security lens -- they are essential to the nation's security, econ. health, & social well being. There is a very real & growing cyber dimension assoc. with infrastructure assurance. Contents: (I) The Case for Action: Acting Now to Protect the Future; The New Geography; New Vulnerabilities, Shared Threats, Shared Responsibility; (II) A Strategy for Action; Onward: Initial recommend. toward preparing our critical infrastructure -- & our gov't.--to deal with our nation's cultural change. Appendices: Sector Summary Reports.

There is no doubt that our critical infrastructures are the best in the world-largely the result of the tremendous efficiency and global reach made possible by incorporation of our rapidly advancing information and communication technology. In fact, we found all our infrastructures increasingly dependent on information and communications systems that criss-cross the nation and span the globe. That dependence is the source of rising vulnerabilities and, therefore, it is where we concentrated our effort. We found no evidence of an impending cyber attack which could have a debilitating effect on the nation's critical infrastructures. While we see no electronic disaster around the corner, this is no basis for complacency. We did find widespread capability to exploit infrastructure vulnerabilities. The capability to do harm-particularly through information networks - is real; it is growing at an alarming rate; and we have little defense against it. Because the infrastructures are mainly privately owned and operated, we concluded that critical infrastructure assurance is a shared responsibility of the public and private sectors. The only sure path to protected infrastructures in the years ahead is through a real partnership between infrastructure owners and operators and the government. Consequently, in addition to our recommendations about improving our government's focus on infrastructure assurance in the Information Age, you will find some recommendations for collaborative public and private organizational arrangements that challenge our conventional way of thinking about government and private sector interaction.

A compelling overview of systems and strategies implemented to safeguard U.S. resources from a plethora of threats, the vulnerabilities and security gaps in these infrastructure systems, and options to enable the future security of the homeland. Since the first edition of this book was published in 2009, significant changes have occurred in the security landscape, both domestically and internationally. This second edition is thoroughly updated to reflect those changes, offering a complete review of the various security and resilience measures currently in place and potential strategies to safeguard life and property within the U.S. homeland. As noted in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Preparedness Goal, the mission area of protection is vital to the homeland in its focus on actions to protect people, vital interests, and our nation's way of life. With that in mind, this book discusses strategies such as risk analysis and assessment, information sharing, and continuity planning. The authors focus on relevant and timely threats and hazards facing specific infrastructure components including, but not limited to, agriculture and food, banking and finance, water, energy, telecommunications, and transportation. The dynamic posture of critical infrastructure security and resilience (CISR) underscores the importance of an integrated, layered all-hazards approach. In describing this approach, the book includes new chapters on planning and guidance, public and private partnerships, cyber issues and threats, and careers in infrastructure protection. Additions such as discussion questions, learning objectives, and fundamental concepts for each chapter provide additional direction for instructors and students alike.

Critical Infrastructure in the U.S. is defined by the Patriot Act of 2001 as "systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters." We are challenged to protect our critical infrastructure from attacks by terrorists and from natural disasters for a variety of reasons. A contributing reason for inefficiencies is the way the current program as established by Presidential Directive 7 (2003) assigns responsibilities. Initially I will address the definition of critical infrastructure and attempt to determine if this definition is adequate, and then move to an examination of our current program to see if there are ways to gain efficiencies and effectiveness. I will also determine if there is a common method to analyze critical infrastructure - i.e., vulnerability, risk, and cost-benefit analysis - to determine how we should prioritize funding for critical infrastructure protection. Finally, recommendations are provided to make our critical infrastructure program more effective.