Understanding Critical Infrastructure and Potential Impact of Cyber-Attacks on Infrastructure (Essay Sample)

Critical infrastructure
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18/02/2021
Critical Infrastructure
Explain the meaning of critical infrastructure and the potential impact of cyber-attacks on that infrastructure. Use actual examples when possible.
The Critical Infrastructure
You can define infrastructure as "basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications systems, water and power lines and public institutions including schools, post offices, and prisons" (Robles et al., 2008). Besides, the critical infrastructure is a description of the physical and cyber systems and assets considered to be vital elements to the United States of America whereby in case they get incapacitated or destroyed, the impact thereof would be debilitating on security associated with physical and economic activities plus the public health and safety (Critical Infrastructure Security, 2012). It means that the critical infrastructure is a body of systems, networks, and assets for a body of critical infrastructure that offers essential services whereby their operations are required continuously while ensuring the security of a particular nation, e.g., United States of America, her economy, and the health and safety of the public. In particular, the White House, health, communications, transportation, water, power, etc., for part of the critical infrastructure in the U.S., meaning that critical infrastructure gets controlled by controlled systems known as supervisory control and data acquisition or SCADA. Therefore, critical infrastructure contains assets important to the national government where it offers its protection through the different agencies responsible for maintaining a safe environment both physically and technologically.
Potential Impact of Cyber-Attacks on the Critical Infrastructure
The critical infrastructure faces several threats where their classification can be regarded as natural threats, human-caused, and accidental or technical (Robles et al., 2008). The critical infrastructure gets attacks either directly or indirectly. When it is a direct attack, the functions get stopped or disrupted while the indirect attack causes disruptions and problems that mainly result from the reaction toward the attacks. Therefore, below is a detailed report on the impact of cyber-attacks on the critical infrastructure, and examples of such attacks and impacts are also provided that include ransomware attack on the health care facilities, economic implications, and effect on power grid line that disrupts electricity distribution.
The first potential impact of a cyber-attack on the critical infrastructure is associated with a ransomware attack that mainly focuses on extortion activities (Deloitte, 2020). Specifically, the health services are vulnerable to such attacks because of the time-sensitivity question considering the need to offer 24/7 services in all facilities. It means that the tolerance for downtime gets lowered hence the increased probability of attracting such attacks because the potential risk factor is increased by there being less tolerance by healthcare providers. For example, the attacks may target COVID-19 vaccine information considering the current healthcare crisis regarding the pandemic (Deloitte, 2020). It means that research on biomedical and pharmaceutical meant for treatment on different diseases that offers cures could be up for potential attack, and that will largely affect the delivery of such services across the United States and other countries in the world (Deloitte, 2020). Besides, information on the austerity measures and health care information regarding the guarding of the COVID-19 pandemic when accessed could mean that everyone is not safe anymore hence the importance of understanding how crucial the critical infrastructure is for enabling an operational environment for the well-being of health care services. Therefore, information extortion is a potential impact of cyber-attack on the critical infrastructure.
The second potential impact of a cyber-attack on the critical infrastructure touches on economic losses. For example, when the World Trade Center was hit by the 9/11 attack, it encountered disruptions and stoppage of all operations because it hosted critical assets that operate in the Banking and Finance sector (Robles et al., 2008). It means that that infrastructure was incapacitated hence the inability to provide the essential services needed by clients on the other end and as a direct attack, it had a large impact on all activities for a prolonged time. Further, interrupting the economic services means that the respective companies realize financial losses at the end of that period, which negatively affects their operations (Sener, 2019). Therefore, a cyber-attack on the critical infrastructure may impact the banking and financial sectors by the affected companies accruing losses for loss of data and service delivery that may run into millions of dollars.
The third potential impact of a cyber-attack on the critical infrastructure is concerned with the effect on the power grid line. Hackers can have the ability to penetrate a network that hosts the operations of a dam hence increasing the risk of shutting down the operations of that particular facility and deny access to the utilities being managed. For instance, a small dam in New York was attacked by hackers from Iran that raised the question of how much is the United States' critical infrastructure exposed (Roberts, 2015). On the other hand, a different event happened in 2013 whereby the Bowman Avenue Dam located just outside New York was attacked (Roberts, 2015). It means that the critical infrastructure operators are not updated with the current realities of potential cyber-attacks on it because when facilities get connected to the Internet, they start being op