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 Critical Infrastructure

Critical infrastructure also known as essential national infrastructure of most countries can be defined as a term that is commonly used by governments to describe the assets that are important for the functioning of the state economy. In a generalized meaning it can be defined as the infrastructure. For most governments, it is commonly associated with special facilities for water supply, electricity generation, health care and financial services, together with security services among others. The United States of America is one of the countries that have an effective system of defending its critical infrastructure through various acts. The Patriot act as of the year 2001 defines critical infrastructure as systems as well as properties which are fundamental to the United States of America whose sabotage or damage will have an unconstructive blow on the country’s economy, security, and health among others. The focus of the current paper will be placed on the critical infrastructure of the USA and the extent of their vulnerability in regard to such issues as the information warfare and cyber terrorism.

There are a number of critical infrastructures acknowledged by the NIST cyber security framework, which are peculiar to the United States of America. These critical infrastructures that had been identified within the country were also aligned with various responsible agencies . One of the examples of these critical infrastructures is water resources, which is under control of the environment protection agency. The US also outlines emergency services as a critical infrastructure managed by the internal security forces. Agriculture and food are also critical infrastructures in the USA, which are under control of the agriculture department. There is also transportation and shipping infrastructure, which is supervised by the transportation department. The US has the docket known as treasury, which manages banking and finance systems. The department of energy manages energy as a critical infrastructure of the country. Government is under the control of homeland security. These and other departments, such as defense industrial base, information telecommunications, chemical industry, critical manufacturing among others are also a part of the essential critical infrastructures of the US. Critical infrastructures of different countries are always vulnerable to cyber terrorism. According to Taylor, et al. , cyber terrorism is defined as computer-based attack or threat, which is highly damaging and is usually enacted by the non-state actors with an intention of intimidating the government or affecting its normal functioning. This is motivated by an intention of interfering with the development of most countries. A cyber-terrorist may attempt hacking critical infrastructures of different countries, which might result in severe damage to economy. These attacks are usually made with the aim of affecting IT systems of critical infrastructure that serve the public.

Cyber terrorism can be perpetuated with the aim of acquiring more information about critical infrastructures of other countries, which eventually leads to the global information warfare. Information warfare can be described as the process of collecting data with the aim of maintaining an advantage over the competitors . It represents a significant issue because in one way or another it compromises the economic development of a particular country.

In conclusion, based on the issues discussed in this paper, it is evident that cyber terrorism and information warfare are significant threats to the growth and development of different countries around the world. These threats are always a matter of concern especially if the crimes are perpetrated on the countries critical infrastructure. In order to deal with these issues affecting counties critical infrastructures, it is vital for the governments of all states to engage the civil society as essential stakeholders who will help in the promotion of cyber resilience. Apart from that, international norms should be established for the governance of critical infrastructures of the countries. By doing so, the digital crimes can be conquered or at least mitigated, and the threats to critical infrastructure are likely to be reduced. This article was composed by Jeff Kip . More works you can see here sequence essay recomended to go ahead !