Infrastructure Protection Assessment

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Infrastructure Protection

Utilities such as water, natural gas, and electricity are considered lifelines for the United States and its economy. Are they vulnerable to terrorist attacks or natural disasters? How can they be protected and secured?

Importance of Infrastructure

Critical infrastructures, such as telecommunications, energy, banking and finance, transportation, water systems and emergency services are the foundations of modern society. They support and maintain the economic operation and activities of our communities and help to maintain the functions, security, safety and stability of society. Our economy, national defence, and quality of life are increasingly reliant upon certain critical infrastructures.

As technology advances, more and more critical infrastructures become increasingly interconnected. More specifically, there is a heavy dependence on critical infrastructures at multiple levels within the supply chain of any good or service (Haimes, 2005). Any disruptions in the supply chain may cause profound cascading effect to other critical infrastructures. A malicious attack, natural disaster, or simply increasing stress on already congested infrastructure could have dramatic impact.

Infrastructure and Security

Subsequent to the events of 9/11, Public Law 107-56, better known as the U.S.A. Patriot Act, was issued. Section 1016 of the act, entitled the Critical Infrastructures Protection Act of 2001, provides the following formal definition of the critical infrastructure: "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.

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" It further states: "This national effort requires extensive modelling and analytic capabilities for purposes of evaluating appropriate mechanisms to ensure the stability of these complex and interdependent systems" (U.S. Congress, 2001).

Infrastructure Networks

The definition of infrastructure networks has evolved considerably, especially since the attacks of September 11, 2011. A comprehensive reference of this evolution is given by Moteff and Parfomak (John, 2005). The growing interdependence and associated vulnerabilities in networked systems has been highlighted in public law. The U.S.A. PATRIOT Act states:

Private business, government, and the national security apparatus increasingly depend on an interdependent network of critical physical and information infrastructures, including telecommunication, energy, financial services, water, and transportation sectors (Federal Highway Administration and Cambridge Systematic, 2005).

Although often ignored in analysing other networks, social networks usually play a key role in the operation and development of other types of networks. For example, in infrastructure networks, humans interact with these networks as managers, operators, and users. While humans play an important role in the efficiency and security of infrastructure networks, they are also "the most susceptible to failure and the most adaptable in the management of recovery," (Massoud, 2002) therefore, "we will not be able to attack the technical and human portions of the network separately...destroying terrorists network requires combinations of physical and social approaches" (Robert, 2005). The effectiveness and response of a network during and after an attack are determined by humans. For example, "the effectiveness of attacking a power grid may depend on how the.....

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