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

BRAZIL

MANUEL SUTER AND ELGIN BRUNNER

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

1 CRITICAL SECTORS

Broadly defined, the Brazilian critical infrastructures include the areas of oil, electric energy, and telecommunications [1]. More specifically, the SecGov 2006 conference [2] held in Brasilia in November 2006 and sponsored by the Institutional Security Cabinet (Gabinete de Segurança Institucional—GSI) had the goal of discussing topics and questions on Critical Infrastructure Security in Brazil, Information and Communication Security and Terrorism. Eight discussion panels took place on the following topics:

• Public Safety,
• Energy,
• Finance,
• Transport Systems,
• Water Supply,
• Public Health,
• Telecommunications,
• Terrorism.

Although the Brazilian government has not formally defined what the critical infrastructures are, at least the first seven topics are unofficially considered to represent critical sectors¹.

As regards critical information infrastructure, the focus lies on telecommunications and the internet. Based on the understanding that critical infrastructure protection on a nationwide level has consequences that can impact a nation socially, politically, and economically, a new approach was developed and proposed specifically by the federal telecommunications regulatory body, Anatel (see the chapter on Organizational Overview), to be applied to the telecommunications infrastructure, in order to understand the related risks and to develop a suitable program based ...