DSC1 552 Purdue University Critical Infrastructure Protection Paper

DSC1552 Critical infrastructure protection

1 – Identify five assets in your community that can be classified as “critical infrastructure.” Explain how the destruction of each asset might affect the community? (Limit to 200 words)

2 – Provide one example of how an emergency response organization can assist in the protection of a critical infrastructure asset
(Limit to 150 words)

**Read the following article describing law enforcement’s role in protecting a nuclear power plant. After reading the article, submit your answers to the instructor through the drop box .

Article_Police_Nuclear_Plant.pdf

Law Enforcement Article

Questions

1.What prompted the use of police officers to secure the nuclear power plant?

2.What kind of information should the police officer receive before being assigned to security of the nuclear plant?

3.What possible problems could arise between the Seabrook Nuclear Plant’s private security and the Seabrook Police Department?

Read the following article describing fire service’s role in responding to the NE Blackout. After reading the article, submit your answers to the instructor through the drop box.

NE_blackout_report.pdf

Questions

1.Why did the respondents criticize private industry after the blackout?

2.How did the Cleveland Fire Department respond when the Cleveland Water System’s pumping stations lost power?

Fire_Road_AAR.pdf Tanker Fire AAR

Discussion Questions

1.Why was this tanker fire significant?

2.What issue with the towing company caused a delay in the removal of the tanker?

3.What problems did the After Action Report Identify in regards to Transportation?

4.How were passengers aboard the Metro notified of the incident?

5.What was the result of the Communications group delayed arrival?

6.Of the Areas to Improve On, section of the report, which area do you think is most important for the emergency responders to correct?

Requirements: Assignments/homework

Examples of Critical Infrastructures

The National Strategy for Homeland SecurityIdentifies thirteen sectors of critical infrastructures. The following table provides the thirteen sectors and the agency that is responsible for its protection.

Sector	Agency
Agriculture	Department of Agriculture
Food	Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services
Water	Environmental Protection Agency
Public Health	Department of Health and Human Services
Emergency Services	Department of Homeland Security
Government	Department of Homeland Security
Defense Industrial Base	Department of Defense
Information and Telecommunications	Department of Homeland Security
Energy	Department of Energy
Transportation	Department of Homeland Security
Banking and Finance	Department of the Treasury
Chemical Industry and Hazardous Materials	Department of Homeland Security
Postal and Shipping	Department of Homeland Security

The critical infrastructure sectors in the National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets contain many physical assets, but only a fraction of these could be viewed as critical according to the DHS definition. For example, out of 33,000 individual assets cataloged in DHS’s “national asset database,” the agency considers only 1,700, or 5%, to be nationally critical. The 33,000 assets in the DHS database themselves constitute only a subset of all assets in the critical infrastructure sectors.Because federal agencies, state agencies and the private sector often have different views of what constitutes criticality, compiling a consensus list of nationally critical assets has been an ongoing challenge for DHS.

8 hours ago

Critical Infrastructure Protection

Terrorists’ pursuit of their long-term strategic objectives includes attacks on critical infrastructures and key assets. Terrorists target critical infrastructures to achieve three general types of effects:

• Direct infrastructure effects: Cascading disruption or arrest of the functions of critical infrastructures or key assets through direct attacks on a critical node, system, or function.
• Indirect infrastructure effects: Cascading disruption and financial consequences for government, society, and economy through public- and private-sector reactions to an attack.
• Exploitation of infrastructure: Exploitation of elements of a particular infrastructure to disrupt or destroy another target.

Generally, critical infrastructure protection (CIP) consists of the proactive activities to protect indispensable people, physical assets, and communication/cyber systems from all hazards.

More formally, it is an analytical process to guide the systematic protection of critical infrastructures by the application of a reliable decision sequence that assists leaders to determine exactly what needs protection and when security measures must occur. As a time-efficient and resource-restrained practice, the process ensures the protection of only those infrastructures upon which survivability and mission success actually depend.

Such is the philosophy of CIP from a municipal perspective: protect first those infrastructures absolutely required for citizen survivability and continuity of operations. For the community emergency services, CIP has a corresponding philosophy: protect first those infrastructures absolutely required for the survivability of emergency first responders and the success of their missions.

The process involves the following steps:

• Identifying the organization’s critical infrastructures
• Determining the threats against those infrastructures
• Analyzing the vulnerabilities of threatened infrastructures
• Assessing the risks of degradation or loss of a critical infrastructure
• Applying countermeasures where risk is unacceptable