Infrastructure security

Infrastructure security is the security provided to protect infrastructure, especially critical infrastructure, such as airports, highways ^[1] rail transport, hospitals, bridges, transport hubs, network communications, media, the electricity grid, dams, power plants, seaports, oil refineries, liquefied natural gas terminals^[2] and water systems. Infrastructure security seeks to limit vulnerability of these structures and systems to sabotage, terrorism, and contamination.^[3]

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 in others, which makes handing interdependencies a key concern.^[4]

There are several examples where an incident at one critical infrastructure site affects others. For example, in 2003, the Northeastern American areas experienced a power outage that appears to have originated in the Midwest, and possibly from a tree branch.^[5] In 2013, damage caused by a sniper attack at an electrical substation in California threatened power distribution throughout Silicon Valley.^[6] The 2020 Nashville bombing caused telecommunications outages in several states.