Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security, 4 Volume Set

CRITICAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, OVERVIEW

MYRIAM DUNN CAVELTY

Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich, Switzerland

1 INTRODUCTION

For a number of years, policymakers at the highest levels have been expressing their concern that insecure information systems threaten economic growth and national security. As a result of these concerns, a complex and overlapping web of national, regional, and multilateral initiatives has emerged. Despite the sometimes substantial differences between these governmental protection policies, they offer a wealth of empirical material from which a variety of lessons can be distilled for the benefit of the international community.

2 BACKGROUND

The importance of protecting infrastructures has greatly increased in the global security political debate of late, due in particular to the traumatic terrorist attacks in New York and Washington (2001), Madrid (2004), and London (2005). In all of these cases, the perpetrators exploited elements of the civilian infrastructure for the purpose of indiscriminate murder. In the case of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, they used the transport infrastructure by turning airplanes into weapons. In Europe, trains, underground railways, and train stations as well as computers were targeted. This approach not only demonstrated the brutal nature of the “new terrorism”, but also reinforced the view that traditional concepts of domestic security were no longer commensurate to contemporary requirements ...