Infrastructure security

Infrastructure security is the security provided to protect infrastructure, especially critical infrastructure, such as airports, highways rail transport, hospitals, bridges, transport hubs, network communications, media, the electricity grid, dams, power plants, seaports, oil refineries, and water systems. Infrastructure security seeks to limit vulnerability of these structures and systems to sabotage, terrorism, and contamination.

Critical infrastructures naturally utilize information technology as this capability has become more and more available. As a result, they have become highly interconnected, and interdependent. Intrusions and disruptions in one infrastructure might provoke unexpected failures to others. How to handle interdependencies becomes an important problem.

The most recent example of vulnerable infrastructure was the electrical grid in 2003, when Northeastern American areas experienced a power outage that appears to have originated in the Midwest, and possibly from a tree branch.

Critical infrastructure is vital for essential functioning of a country. Incidental or deliberate damage will have serious impact on the economy as well as providing essential services to the communities it serves. There are a number of reasons why infrastructure needs to be heavily secured and protected.

One of the fundamental foundations of modern society is the electrical power systems. An intentional disruption of electricity supplies would affect national security, the economy, and every person's life. Because power grids and their sources are widely dispersed, this is a challenge for the effectiveness of defensive organizations and structures.

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