Critical infrastructure
Critical infrastructure encompasses the essential systems and structures vital for a nation's functioning and security. These infrastructures span various sectors including transportation, agriculture, defense, public health, energy, and information technology. Their importance lies in the fact that their failure or disruption can severely impact daily life and national stability, making them potential targets for terrorism and other threats. In the United States, the management of these critical sectors falls under various government agencies, with specific departments designated to oversee each area.
The interconnected nature of these sectors is crucial; for example, the food and agriculture sector depends on transportation for distribution, while the communications sector supports operations across all others. In recent years, the rise in cyber threats has highlighted the necessity for enhanced cybersecurity measures to protect these infrastructures, especially following high-profile attacks that have disrupted essential services. Legislative efforts have emerged in response to these threats, reinforcing the commitment to safeguarding critical infrastructure and improving national resilience against both physical and cyber vulnerabilities. Overall, understanding critical infrastructure is essential for grasping how nations maintain security and operational integrity in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.
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Critical infrastructure
The term “critical infrastructure” refers to the elements of a nation’s infrastructure (basic equipment and structures) that are considered essential to everyday life and to the continued security of the nation. Sectors of infrastructure typically considered critical include transportation, agriculture, defense and security, public health, fuel production, and information technology. As critical infrastructure is key to the functioning of a nation, it represents a potential target of terrorism and other disruptive actions. Various governmental agencies are typically responsible for maintaining the security of a country’s critical infrastructure, and the overall protection of this infrastructure is often considered a crucial aspect of homeland security.
Overview
Numerous sectors of infrastructure are needed to maintain the safety, health, and prosperity of a country. While all areas of infrastructure are important, some are typically considered the most essential. Those key areas, known collectively as a nation’s critical infrastructure, are the systems and industries without which the country would be unable to function properly.
In the United States, critical infrastructure comprises sixteen sectors: chemical; commercial facilities; communications; critical manufacturing; dams; defense industrial base; emergency services; energy; financial services; food and agriculture; government facilities; health care and public health; information technology; nuclear reactors, materials, and waste; transportation systems; and waste and wastewater systems. According to the 2013 Presidential Policy Directive on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, the maintenance and protection of each sector is the responsibility of a specific government department with expertise in that area. For example, the Department of Homeland Security is the sector-specific agency (SSA) for the United States’ commercial facilities, dams, emergency services, and nuclear reactors, while the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services are co-SSAs for the food and agriculture sector.
Critical infrastructure is by nature a crucial part of a country’s operations. As such, those sectors are potential targets for terrorist organizations or other groups seeking to disrupt a nation’s day-to-day functions. The field of critical infrastructure security is therefore a key branch of homeland security, and security professionals must seek to identify and prevent threats against critical infrastructure. Security agencies and SSAs must work together as well to determine how best to strengthen the infrastructure and reduce vulnerability to future interference.
The various sectors of critical infrastructure are highly interdependent on one another. For example, the food and agriculture sector relies heavily on the transportation sector to move food from where it is grown or produced to where it is consumed. Similarly, the communications sector facilitates the operations of every other sector, and the information technology sector assists numerous other sectors with their computer-based operations. All of those sectors must collaborate to ensure the efficient, effective, and secure functioning of a nation’s infrastructural systems.
By 2021, in addition to physical maintenance of the United States' critical infrastructure, protection and improvement of the nation's critical infrastructure's cybersecurity had become particularly important, including in terms of legislation. While the need to ensure that any companies responsible for critical infrastructure prioritized cybersecurity had existed ever since the rise of the internet and industries' dependence upon digital operations and communications, reports of high-profile, high-impact cyberattacks involving critical infrastructure in the 2010s and into the 2020s prompted even greater government and public investment in this issue. With a number of major hospitals reporting deleterious ransomware attacks stunting operations and alienating customers amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020, the year 2021 saw two large companies providing other essential services for Americans in both the energy and transportation and food industries fall victim. After a group of hackers caused Colonial Pipeline to lose operational control and temporarily shut down its massive fuel-supplying service in May, later that same month JBS USA Holdings, which operates plants that produce the largest percentage of the country's supply of meat, was forced to take them offline for a time upon becoming the target of another ransomware attack. In part because of such incidents, President Joe Biden issued a July national security memorandum directly addressing his administration's commitment to safeguarding the cybersecurity of national critical infrastructure and announcing the establishment of the Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative. In September, two senators introduced a bill that would require organizations to notify the federal government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within a short amount of time when they become victims of cyberattacks and/or pay a ransom to hackers. At the same time, the proposed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act aimed at improving national infrastructure that had passed the Senate in August included funding for the cause of combating critical infrastructure cyberattacks.
Bibliography
Alperen, Martin J. Foundations of Homeland Security: Law and Policy. Hoboken: Wiley, 2011. Print.
American Society of Civil Engineers. Guiding Principles for the Nation’s Critical Infrastructure. Reston: ASCE, 2009. Print.
Biringer, Betty E., Eric D. Vugrin, and Drake E. Warren. Critical Infrastructure System Security and Resiliency. Boca Raton: CRC, 2013. Print.
Hokstad, Per, Ingrid B. Utne, and Jørn Vatn, eds. Risk and Interdependencies in Critical Infrastructures: A Guideline for Analysis. London: Springer, 2012. Print.
Lewis, Ted G. Critical Infrastructure Production in Homeland Security. Hoboken: Wiley, 2006. Print.
Lopez, Javier, Roberto Setola, and Stephen D. Wolthusen, eds. Critical Infrastructure Protection. London: Springer, 2012. Print.
Macaulay, Tyson. Critical Infrastructure: Understanding Its Component Parts, Vulnerabilities, Operating Risks, and Interdependencies. Boca Raton: CRC, 2009. Print.
Radvanovsky, Robert, and Allan McDougall. Critical Infrastructure: Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. 3rd ed. Boca Raton: CRC, 2013. Print.
Sands, Geneva. "Senators Introduce Cyber Bill to Mandate Reporting on Ransomware and Critical Infrastructure Attacks." CNN, 28 Sept. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/09/28/politics/senators-introduce-cyber-reporting-bill/index.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.