Critical Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Reader

1The Challenge

CHAPTER MENU

• 1.1 The Evolution of Critical Infrastructure Protection
  • 1.1.1 In the Beginning
  • 1.1.2 Natural Disaster Recovery
  • 1.1.3 What Is Critical?
  • 1.1.4 Public–Private Cooperation
  • 1.1.5 Federalism: Whole of Government
• 1.2 Defining CIKR Risk and Resilience
  • 1.2.1 Risk Strategy
  • 1.2.2 Resilience Strategy
  • 1.2.3 Sustainability Strategy
  • 1.2.4 The Four Horsemen
• 1.3 Weather/Climate Change/Global Warming
  • 1.3.1 The Carrington Event
  • 1.3.2 Black Bodies
  • 1.3.3 The Lightening Rod
• 1.4 Consequences
  • 1.4.1 Accidents/Aging/Neglect
  • 1.4.2 The Report Card
    • 1.4.2.1 The Domino Effect
  • 1.4.3 Terrorism/Extremists
  • 1.4.4 Cyber Exploits/Criminals
    • 1.4.4.1 Black Hats
    • 1.4.4.2 Cybercrime Pays
  • 1.4.5 The Soft War
  • 1.4.6 Cyberattacks and CIKR
• 1.5 Discussion
• References

Before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 infrastructure both critical and otherwise was of interest only to civil engineers, planners, and a handful of regulators. Afterward, infrastructure became critical and the media began to show interest. It became even more interesting when global warming and climate change became an acceptable topic at cocktail parties. Even the politicians fought over it, leading up to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which was essentially a global warming act. Infrastructure became mainstream.

This chapter provides definitions of CIKR (Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources), threat, vulnerability, consequence, risk, resilience, and sustainability. In addition, it identifies the challenges ...