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Critical Infrastructure Protection

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Technical Focus Areas: Critical Infrastructure Protection | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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The Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center (HDIAC) regularly develops state of the art reports (SOARs) in order to provide a compendium of scientific/technical articles that summarize the most current state of research in topic areas of importance to the Department of Defense. These SOARs are a means of satisfying user needs for authoritative information directly applicable to their ongoing work.

Critical Infrastructure Protection is one of the HDIAC’s eight technical focus areas and was chosen as the subject of our latest state of the art report due to its importance to the nation. Critical Infrastructure Protection is composed of National Infrastructure, Physical and Virtual Systems, Cyber Infrastructure, and Continuity of Operations.

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security identifies 16 critical infrastructure sectors that are essential to sustaining the economic vitality and high standard of living for Americans: Chemical; Commercial Facilities; Communications; Critical Manufacturing; Dams; Defense Industrial Base; Emergency Services; Energy; Financial Services; Food and Agriculture; Government Facilities; Healthcare and Public Health; Information Technology; Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste; Transportation Systems, and Water and Wastewater. Their protection must be planned for, which involves the public sector and local, tribal, state, and federal levels of government.

The National Security Strategy of the United States asserts that “our fundamental responsibility is to protect the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life… We will protect our critical infrastructure and go after malicious cyber actors.” Additionally, nested under the National Security Strategy is the National Defense Strategy, and it outlines an operational environment where “every domain is contested – air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace,” and emphasizes that the “homeland is no longer a sanctuary.” Attacks on our critical infrastructure, both in the physical realm and in cyber space, can cause significant economic disruption, loss of confidence in our civilian institutions, and most importantly injuries to and deaths of countless citizens.

This SOAR reviews the current state of emerging technologies and methodologies relating to the protection of infrastructure and resources critical to national security including public health, financial services, security services (police, military), telecommunications, agriculture, security threats posed from cyber warfare and operational factors and functions, and Continuity of Operations planning. Volume I of this two-volume report takes a look at the evolution of our critical infrastructure protective measures, the physical threats to our critical infrastructure, and the role government has in working with the owners of the largely privately-owned infrastructure assets. Volume II of this SOAR looks deeper into the cybersecurity threat as our critical infrastructure is vulnerable to not only physical but also cyber-attacks.

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Authors

Nathanael J. Bocker
Nathanael J. Bocker
Nate Bocker is the owner of LateralUs, LLC, a Virginia-based Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business. He holds a Bachelor of Science from American Military University in Environmental Science with a focus Sustainability. He is a veteran of the Marine Corps, the Army, and the Army Reserves. Mr. Bocker served in several capacities, including electronics technician, infantry, and as a power-plant operator. While assigned to the 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mr. Bocker began studying vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure and their relationship to community resilience, and the relationships to Homeland Defense. He currently focuses on business workforce development strategies that leverage underutilized demographics to address critical skills gaps in and around Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Patrick Baxter
Patrick Baxter
Patrick Baxter is a Public Policy Ph.D. student (Econometric Analysis Focus) at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. Previously, he was the Country Representative in Malawi of Innovation for Poverty Action, the world’s leading provider of Randomized Controlled Trials (RTC) in economic development. A hands-on expert in RCT-based evaluations, a trained econometrician, and a practicing economist, his decade of experience includes field assignments in Indonesia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Philippines, Rwanda, and South Africa. He has been a manager and a staff member in large multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and UNICEF, in research-oriented non-profits such as the International Growth Centre and Khulisa Management Services, and in for-profit development firms including Causal Design and Nathan Consultants. He has published working papers on, among others, food security, teacher performance, tax evasion, and maternal mortality. He has a Master in International Development Policy from Georgetown University, and a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross.
Jeth Fogg, Ph.D.
Jeth Fogg, Ph.D.
Dr. Jeth Fogg is the Engineer Operations and Environmental Chief in the Directorate of Logistics and Engineering at North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command with science and technology, environmental, homeland defense, and defense support to civil authorities included in his portfolio. Dr. Fogg has 32 years of civil engineering design, operations, public works, construction management, environmental compliance, hospital life safety, critical infrastructure and homeland security/defense, education and research experience. For the past year, he has been a key member of the More Situational Awareness for Industrial Control Systems team communicating the importance of cyber protection of critical infrastructure for our nation. He holds a B.S., M.E., and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, a Graduate certificate in Homeland Defense, and Professional Engineer licensure in Colorado and Florida.
Tyler Goodwin
Tyler Goodwin
Tyler Goodwin is currently pursuing his Master in Public Policy Analysis at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, focusing in technology policy and data science. Prior to attending George Mason, Tyler graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where he acquired a B.A. in Political Science and a B.S. in Human Rights Law & Economics. He has held research positions at several organizations since his sophomore year at UAB, including the Institute for Human Rights and his current appointment as a Graduate Research Assistant at George Mason. His policy interests include data privacy, artificial intelligence, algorithmic management, and human rights as they relate to technological progress.
Anura P. Jayasumana, Ph.D.
Anura P. Jayasumana, Ph.D.
Dr. Anura Jayasumana is a Professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Colorado State University. He served as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society (2014-17) and is currently an ACM Distinguished Lecturer. He received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University, and B.Sc. in Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering with First Class Honors from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. His current research interests include Internet of Things, detection of distributed patterns in networks, and mining of network-based data. He has served as a consultant to numerous companies ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies, and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, ACM and IEEE.
Dirk Plante
Dirk Plante
Dirk Plante is the Deputy Director of the Homeland Defense and Security Information Analysis Center. He retired from the United States Army in 2019 following a 30-year career as a basic branch Engineer officer and a functional area 52 (Nuclear and Counterproliferation) officer.  From 2011 to 2014 he served on the Army Staff working treaty compliance matters for the Army, including New START Treaty compliance visits by the Russians.  His final assignment in the Army was as Chief, Survivability & Effects Analysis Division at the U.S. Army Nuclear and Countering WMD Agency, Fort Belvoir, VA, overseeing the Army CBRN Survivability Program, and the Army Reactor Office.  He holds a M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH and a M.S. in Strategic Studies from the Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA.
Steve Redifer
Steve Redifer
Mr. Redifer is the Director of the Homeland Defense and Security Information Analysis Center.  His experience includes emergency management, national security affairs, survivability/vulnerability, directed energy weapons, and space systems operations. Mr. Redifer served over 27 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, retiring at the rank of Colonel.  During that time, he commanded the Marine Corps’ Chemical-Biological Incident Response Force and Region 8 (Central Europe/Balkans), Marine Corps Embassy Security Group.  His staff experience includes tours at Headquarters Marine Corps as well as serving in the office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation.  Mr. Redifer’s combat tours include Operation Restore Hope, Mogadishu, Somalia and Operation Iraqi Freedom, Fallujah, Iraq. Mr. Redifer holds an M.S. in Applied Physics and an M.S. in Space Systems Operations from the Naval Postgraduate School, a Master of Strategic Studies from the Air War College, and a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering from Auburn University.
Steven Simske, Ph.D.
Steven Simske, Ph.D.
Steven Simske, Ph.D., joined Colorado State University in 2018 as a Professor in Systems, Mechanical, and Biomedical Engineering. Before then, he was an HP Fellow and a Research Director in HP Labs. He led HP in research and development in algorithms, multi-media, labels, brand protection, security and secure printing, imaging, 3D printing, analytics and life sciences. He is a long-time member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils (2010-2016), leads the Steering Committee for the ACM DocEng Symposium, and is former President of the Imaging Science and Technology professional organization. Dr. Simske has nearly 200 granted US patents and more than 400 professional publications, including the recent books, Meta-Algorithmics and Meta-Analytics. He is an Honorary Professor in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, UK. Dr. Simske was a payload specialist on a dozen Space Shuttle missions, and has designed devices ranging from exercise-responsive pacemakers to impedance tomography systems.
Aleksandra Scalco
Aleksandra Scalco
Aleksandra Scalco is an engineer with the Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic. She is working towards a Systems Engineering Ph.D. at Colorado State University (CSU). Her research field is cyber resilience for Operational Technology (OT). She earned a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Iowa State University in 2012, and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) in 2009. She is a member of the Defense Acquisition Corps in engineering. Ms. Scalco is Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) career certified Level 3 Engineering, Level 1 Science & Technology, and Level 1 Program Management. She holds ITIL Intermediate Certifications. Before joining NIWC Atlantic Ms. Scalco was a member of the National Security Agency (NSA) workforce as an Information System Security Designer (ISSD). As an ISSD, she provided technical expertise to clients on cyber assurance to advance the state of cybersecurity solutions to harden the National Security Enterprise against adversarial threats.
Tonya E. Thornton, Ph.D.
Tonya E. Thornton, Ph.D.
Dr. Tonya Thornton is the Director of Grants at the George Mason University (GMU) Schar School of Policy and Government.  She is also an Assistant Professor in the Master of Public Administration program and is the Coordinator for its Emergency Management and Homeland Security graduate certificate.  Dr. Thornton is a Co-Principal Investigator for the Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities and is an Advisory Council Member for GMU’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth.  Prior to joining GMU, Dr. Thornton was the Director for the Mississippi Public Safety Data Laboratory where she worked with the Mississippi Highway Patrol in developing computational programs to collect and analyze traffic records data in a timely, accurate, and consistent manner. As a scholar, Dr. Thornton’s research portfolio approximates $6 million and has published her efforts on a number of peer review journals, including being a co-editor for the forthcoming Law Enforcement in Emergency Management.  Dr. Thornton is an active member of the American Society for Public Administration and serves as a Viewpoint Associate Editor for Public Administration Review.  Dr. Thornton has a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy and Administration from Mississippi State University, where she also earned a Master of Public Policy and Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with an emphasis in the Geosciences.
David Weissman
David Weissman
David Weissman is a Ph.D. candidate at Colorado State University in the Systems Engineering Department. His current area of research is in cybersecurity solutions for government and business infrastructure advancement. He is currently focused on Internet of Things security, particularly relating the use of deception technology to protect and reduce risk to critical assets. He has worked in advanced technical, business, and financial professional capacities for 25+ years involving both defense and commercial sectors.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. This is an important and well-done report. I would like to ask why you have not included the protection from the effects of high-altitude nuclear blast electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) and Geo-magnetic disturbance on critical infrastructure. Thank you.

    • Thank you for your post and for your comment on the latest HDIAC state of the art report. This state of the art report was an ambitious effort, as we developed a two-volume report with a lot of great content. We discuss the general threat to critical infrastructure in volume I, and the cyber threat specifically in volume II. The threat posed by EMP is a great topic in itself and we would definitely include it in a future SOAR in our weapons of mass destruction technical focus area.

  2. I think you might consider applicable fiction.

    Tom Clancy book Debt of Honor (1994) included a scenario wherein an airline pilot crashes a Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol dome.

    Nobody paid attention to this possibility in the lead up to 9/11 (The FBI knew of pilots training to fly but not land 7 67 aircraft.)

    Concerning attacks on substations, a drone can land a shaped charge on the transformer. How long would it take utility crews to notice things which looked like a frisbee? With cell phone technology a large number could be set off in a short time.

    Even less complicated would be to reverse the cathodic protection on pipelines.

    More discussion on these topics if you want.

    Keith Henson

    • Hello, and thank you for your post. The threats to the nation’s critical infrastructure (CI) certainly are numerous and varied. Our state of the art report on critical infrastructure protection includes sections covering both natural and manmade threats to CI. The examples you give in your post definitely point out that there is no shortage of specific ways CI can be threatened. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s website has content on threats to CI, and its mission to work with partners and defend against threats to CI; see https://www.cisa.gov/infrastructure-security. We definitely look forward to further posts that can inform the HDIAC user community and encourage continued discussion.

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