Assessing modern challenges and threats affecting national security by full-scale military operations

СИТУАЦІЙНІ ЦЕНТРИ ДЕРЖАВНИХ ОРГАНІВ ЯК СКЛАДОВА МЕХАНІЗМУ ПРИВЕДЕННЯ У ВИЩІ СТУПЕНІ БОЙОВОЇ ГОТОВНОСТІ ЧАСТИН І ПІДРОЗДІЛІВ СИЛ ОБОРОНИ

The study describes methods for protecting the critical infrastructure of a state. The article aims to determine the combination of protecting methods of the state’s critical infrastructure from terrorist activities, namely security, physical protection, protection of critical infrastructure, protection of critical information infrastructure, and prevention of emergencies of a terrorist nature at objects of critical infrastructure. It is necessary to fulfil the following objectives to achieve the aim: to consider the difference and interrelation of the concepts of critical infrastructure and information critical infrastructure; to characterise the general properties of various terms, in particular: security, physical protection, protection of critical infrastructure, protection of information critical infrastructure, prevention of terrorist emergencies at objects of critical infrastructure; to analyse from the scientific point of view the classical definitions of forms and methods of critical infrastructure protection; to propose a generalised structure of information and technical methods of critical infrastructure protection; to determine the possibility of using information and technical methods in various fields of knowledge to protect the state’s critical infrastructure from terrorist influence. In summary, the structure of information and technical methods for critical infrastructure protection consists of three components: a mathematical model that describes the process occurring at critical infrastructure, a control algorithm that implements the mathematical model, and procedures that indicate the order of actions for applying the method. The problem of protecting critical infrastructure from terrorist activities requires technical, legal, military, psychological, medical, chemical, biological, and other sciences to address it. Each type of science will use its specific methods to solve practical problems of preventing terrorist emergencies at critical infrastructure. For technical sciences, there will be information-technical, engineering-technical, operational-technical, organisational-technical, biotechnical, and other methods to prevent emergencies of a terroristic nature that need development shortly. Keywords: critical information infrastructure, protection, terror, security, terrorist emergency.

The article analyzes the existing legal mechanisms for managing critical information infrastructure in Ukraine. The instruments for their improvement are proposing in this article. An important component of critical infrastructure is its information component – a critical information infrastructure. The sphere of protection of critical information infrastructure in Ukraine is at the initial stage of formation. The current legislation defines only certain objects of socio-economic sphere, in which extraordinary events can lead to socially dangerous consequences. In view of the fact, that the term “critical information infrastructure” does not having a consistent interpretation in different countries, we propose our opinion. “Critical information infrastructure is a system of information management of critical facilities and information and communication networks that provide defense capabilities and security of public and private institutions, whose operation may flow to the national security of Ukraine” (KII). In the KII we can identified information and network components. Information environment of KII is a system for information management of critical objects, including computing and information resources that form automated control systems (ACS). The network component of KII consists of a set of telecommunication devices, communication lines and network equipment, systems of open protocols for the exchange of information between elecommunication devices, global system of digital addresses and digital identifiers, software. The Internet network can be considered as a technological add-on over a telecommunication network that provides the provision of data transmission and processing services (e-mail, teleconferencing, file transfer, access to computing and information systems in local area networks). The main threat to the safety of ACS of critical information infrastructure objects is targeted actions on information systems, information and telecommunication networks by software and hardware. KII legal security include two main components – national and international. The national component may be forming by a set of principles, legal institutions and norms, which are enshrined in the national legislation regulating public relations in Ukraine in the area of counteracting the security threats of the ACS of critical objects. In order to protect the most important objects of KII, it is necessary to identify these objects. The current legislation defines such categories of objects, for which special conditions for ensuring their protection and functioning are established. Some of them, in whole or in part, may be classifying as objects of critical infrastructure. The specificity of providing information security was reflecting in such Ukraine laws like “On the Fundamentals of National Security of Ukraine”, “On the Concept of the National Program of Informatization”, “On the National Program of Informatization”. As well as the Concept of Development of the Security and Defense Sector of Ukraine, the National Security Strategy of Ukraine, the Strategy of Cybersecurity Of Ukraine. The National Security Strategy identifies actual threats to national security and sets priorities for information security, cyber security and security of information resources and critical infrastructure. At the same time, the implementation of the state policy in the field of security of KII requires the further development of legal principles and norms governing the relevant social relations, that is, the national component of the legal security of KII. Ukraine should ensure the establishment of a nationwide system for assessing risks and threats to critical infrastructure, and after the legislative definition of the main terms, the implementation of the Identification of Critical Information Infrastructure objects. Identification of objects of critical information infrastructure can be accomplishing by introducing the certification of objects of critical information infrastructure. Such passports must contain general data about the facility, data on the main sources of danger, data on hazardous natural conditions, technological processes and response to threats. The international component of the legal security of KII provides for the regulation of a set of principles and norms defined by international treaties and recognized by the state, regulating issues of international cooperation in this area. Ukraine has signed the Convention on Cybercrime together with the member states of the Council of Europe and other States. It is aiming at stopping actions against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer systems, networks and computer data, as well as abusing such systems, networks and data by installing the criminal responsibility for such behavior, the provision of powers sufficient to combat criminal offenses, and the conclusion of agreements on rapid and reliable international cooperation. In addition, the plan of measures for 2017 on implementation of the Cybersecurity Strategy of Ukraine provides for the implementation of Directive 2008/114/EC on the protection of critical infrastructure, in particular on cybersecurity and cyber defense of critical infrastructure objects. Development of the system of international information security, the following main groups of international relations that requirenormative legal regulation within the framework of the legal security of KII: definition of the boundaries of the national KII in the global information and communication infrastructure and fixing signs of computer incidents in the control system of critical objects information infrastructure. The absence of generally recognized borders of state sovereignty of States in this space is a significant obstacle to the application of international law to the actions of other states. In particular, this impedes the establishment of limits of responsibility of states for violating the security of the KII and organizing international cooperation in the field of countering computer crime. The urgency of the legislative consolidation of signs of computer incidents in the automated control system of critical information infrastructure objects suggests the widespread use of the concept of “incident” in international law. An incident in cyberspace usually associated with a violation of the functioning of the components of cyberspace – an electronic collection environment and automated processing of information that determines the processes of the implementation of these operations, as well as information systems and automated control systems. The essence of the general definition of the “international incident” in the field of KII will be determining, firstly, by the nature of international relations between states that are violating by the “incident”. This event may be the result of unforeseen actions of the state, including actions that harm the interests of public bodies of one or more states, or, conversely, be one of many intentional but minor provocations carried out by agents of one state against another state. Given that international relations in the field of incidents in the field of KII are not regulating by international treaties, the main and, in fact, the only source of international law in this case serves as an international custom, however, its application to the sphere of KII is accompanying by considerable difficulties. For Ukraine, it is possible to introduce the positive experience of other states in the security of the KII. In particular, the problem of security of information technologies has been enshrined in the international standard ISO / IEC 15408 “General criteria for assessing the safety of information technology”.

Critical infrastructure represents a medium of national and international importance whose destruction, temporary or permanent disruption in process activities, would seriously endanger or weaken national and public safety, economic and social prosperity. Beside the internal threats, critical infrastructure is exposed to natural, technical-technological and anthropogenic threats, where terrorism is recognized to be one of the most unpredictable and dangerous sources of threats to the critical infrastructures. For that reason countries are responsible for the implementation and improvement of the critical infrastructures' protection and resilience to ensure survival, the development and advancement of individuals' and the social community, domestic and foreign economic subjects on their soil and, in partnership, achieving stability and safety of other countries. The goal of this work is to analyze how the Republic of Croatia has, so far, legally, regulatory and operationally developed protection and resilience of the national critical infrastructure, and give recommendations with regards to necessary steps in the continuation of the said process.

A Design of a Scheduling System for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Deployment

Problem setting. The relevance of the article is confirmed by the fact that the interaction between the main components of the Security and Defense Sector of Ukraine, namely the security forces and defense forces, in both peacetime and wartime, is the main condition for national (state) security. The problem of the Security and Defense Forces development is at the planning stage, as, given their current state, there are still many shortcomings in the actions of the state leadership and the governing bodies of the Security and Defense Sector. With the adoption of the new version of the National Security Strategy, the tasks of the security and defense forces become more complicated, which requires some adjustments for changes in strategic planning. This very point actualizes the topicality of the article. Recent research and publications analysis. The analysis of domestic and foreign scientific literature has shown that the issues, considered following the topic of the research, are now covered in the studies of many authors, such as V. Bogdanovich, O. Bodruk, O. Vlasyuk, V. Gorbulin, S. Kononenko, G. Perepelytsia, V. Pocheptsov, O. Reznikov, A. Semenchenko, G. Sytnyk, M. Sitsinska, M. Sungurovsky, V. Lipkan, I. Hrytsyak, A. Kachynski, V. Telelym, A. Paderin, T. Starodub, A. Sitsinsky, O. Sukhodolia, L. Chekalenko, V. Chaly and other scientists. However, a comprehensive study to determine the role and place of the security and defense forces of Ukraine in the system of military security of the state has hardly been conducted. Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The purpose and the objective of the article is to analyze the problems of security and defense forces development in the context of ensuring Ukraine’s military security, and to identify ways to improve the effectiveness of interaction between the security and defense sector components in the course of implementation of the new national security strategy. Paper main body. The main element of the security and defense forces is the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces of Ukraine is a military formation, which, according to the Constitution of Ukraine, is responsible for the defense of Ukraine, protection of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability. The Armed Forces of Ukraine provide deterrence and repulse of armed aggression against Ukraine, protection of state airspace and underwater space within the territorial sea of Ukraine; in cases specified by law, they participate in activities aimed at combating terrorism. The main military formation of the security forces is the National Guard of Ukraine, which is designated to perform tasks of the state security and protection of the state border, and which also participates in cooperation with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while repelling armed aggression against Ukraine and eliminating armed conflict by conducting military (combat) actions, and in the implementation of territorial defense tasks as well. Conclusion of the research and prospects for further studies. It is stated that, given the complexity of the threats the country is facing, the accumulation of efforts of all components of the security and defense forces is required, especially in conditions of aggravation of the social and political situation in Ukraine, caused by the active influence of the Russian Federation on the spread of anti-state and separatist tendencies and direct intervention in all social processes of our state. Therefore, only after the elimination of the threat from the Russian Federation it will be possible to divide the issues into separate security or defense ones, since such issues as ensuring the territorial integrity of the state, preserving public peace, freedoms and rights of citizens are very interrelated.

In the information age, critical infrastructure have become largely computerized and interconnected throughout the world, and their scope has grown more and more. Indeed, a failure in one critical infrastructure could lead to serious consequences on national security, economic well-being, public health, safety, or any combination thereof, producing then cascading effects because of their synergies. Consequently, the reliability, performance, continuous operation, safety, and protection of these so-called critical infrastructures is essential toward society and its economy. Nevertheless, the protection of critical infrastructure is a classical method that opens the question on the situation of these infrastructures in case of failure. In response to this, several studies necessitate a further strengthening in terms of resilience of these infrastructures. The items explored in this paper discuss different aspects related to resilience that gives the foundation of resilience strategy. We present in one hand the state of the art regarding resilience view in Critical Infrastructures and gives a systematic approach that can be applied on it, introducing then the applicability of resilience policy on these infrastructures.

The article highlights the aspects of the Security and Defense Sector’s defense function. Based on the analysis of the legislationof Ukraine, the specifics of the normative regulation of the content of the category “defense”, as well as the diversity of doctrinal understandingof this category are highlighted. It is noted that the defense function of the state is realized, in fact, by all elements of the powermechanism. In this way, the state of readiness of the state “defense forces” necessary for the flow of armed aggression is achieved.Along with this, it was noted that within the framework of the state mechanism, it is expedient to single out those structures whosecompetence directly provides for the implementation of the defense function.The structure of the security and defense sector contains four components, which are differentiated according to their functionalpurpose and legal nature. In particular, these are: 1) security forces; 2) defense forces; 3) defense-industrial complex; 4) public associationsthat voluntarily participate in ensuring national security. It is also worth noting that the institutional components of Ukraine’ssecurity and defense sector belong to both the state apparatus and civil society institutions.The content of the categories “security forces” and “defense forces” is distinguished. Security forces are law enforcement andintelligence agencies, state bodies of special purpose with law enforcement functions, civil defense forces, as well as other bodiesentrusted by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine with functions to ensure the national security of Ukraine. In turn, the defense forcesinclude the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as other military formations, law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies formedin accordance with the laws of Ukraine, as well as special purpose bodies with law enforcement functions, which are assigned by theConstitution and laws of Ukraine. The main institutional element of the Security and Defense Sector is the Armed Forces of Ukraine.It is the Armed Forces that protect the sovereignty of the state and territorial integrity, as well as ensure the inviolability of state borders.Emphasis is placed on the function of the National Guard of Ukraine and the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine as important componentsof the security and defense sector.It is noted that today the subordination of military institutions and law enforcement agencies to various ministries and authoritiesis a factor that may negatively affect their interaction in the process of performing the tasks provided by law. Therefore, we consider itexpedient for the President of Ukraine, as the Head of State and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, toadopt a normative act on cooperation between the Security and Defense Sector in the process of armed defense of Ukraine’s territorialintegrity and state sovereignty.

In this paper, the optimal deployment of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acting as flying base stations is investigated. Considering the downlink scenario, the goal is to minimize the total required transmit power of UAVs while satisfying the users' rate requirements. To this end, the optimal locations of UAVs as well as the cell boundaries of their coverage areas are determined. To find those optimal parameters, the problem is divided into two sub-problems that are solved iteratively. In the first sub-problem, given the cell boundaries corresponding to each UAV, the optimal locations of the UAVs are derived using the facility location framework. In the second sub-problem, the locations of UAVs are assumed to be fixed, and the optimal cell boundaries are obtained using tools from optimal transport theory. The analytical results show that the total required transmit power is significantly reduced by determining the optimal coverage areas for UAVs. These results also show that, moving the UAVs based on users' distribution, and adjusting their altitudes can lead to a minimum power consumption. Finally, it is shown that the proposed deployment approach, can improve the system's power efficiency by a factor of 20 χ compared to the classical Voronoi cell association technique with fixed UAVs locations.

In this paper, the problem of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) deployment is investigated for visible light communication (VLC)-enabled UAV networks. Here, UAVs can simul-taneously provide communications and illumination services to ground users. In this model, ambient illumination distribution of the service area must be considered since it can cause interference over the VLC link and affects the illumination requirements of users. This problem is formulated as an optimization problem, which jointly considers UAV deployment, user association, power efficiency, and predictions of the illumination distribution. To solve this problem, we first need to predict illumination distribution to proactively determine the UAV deployment and user association so as to minimize total transmission power of UAVs. To predict the illumination distribution of the entire service area, a federated learning framework based on the machine learning algorithm of convolutional auto-encoder (CAE) is proposed. Compared to the centralized machine learning algorithms that requires complete illumination data for centralized training, the proposed algorithm enables the UAVs to train their local CAE with partial illumination data and cooperatively build a global CAE model that can predict the entire illumination distribution. Using these predictions, the optimal UAV deployment and user association policy that minimizes the total transmission power of UAVs is determined. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach reduces the transmission power of UAVs up to 14.8% and 25.1%, respectively, compared to the local CAE prediction models and the conventional optimal algorithm without illumination distribution predictions.

The article investigates the essence of the “security environment” concept, which has recently been used to define the goals and areas of the security and defence sector of Ukraine, and also identifies its structural elements. The term “security environment” is a combination of two concepts – “security” and “environment”. “Security” means the state of protection of vital interests of an individual, society and the state from external and internal threats, and “environment” means a set of certain conditions in which an individual, society or state exists. The concept of “security environment” in Ukrainian legislation and in the national scientific literature is mainly used in the field of military security and defence review. The concept of “security environment” (in the context of the existence of a state or a set of states) should be applied when referring to the set of conditions and factors of its existence that provide such a state with protection from internal and external threats. Based on the analysis of the Ukrainian researchers’ publications, as well as the works of foreign scholars, the author identifies the main types of security environments depending on the characteristics of threats to such environments: external and internal. The external security environment is associated with the elimination of external threats and mostly concerns the military and foreign policy spheres. The internal security environment is formed by minimising internal threats, some of which fall within the direct responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The correlation of the term “security environment” with related categories, in particular, “national security”, “state security”, “internal security” has been determined. The concept of “national security” actually describes the desired overall state of the security environment of a particular country, which affects the regional or global security environment. The state of national security is actually a characteristic of the overall security environment of the state. It has been proved that the MIA of Ukraine is a subject of formation and development of the internal security environment of Ukraine. The security environment in the context of the MIA of Ukraine is a set of internal spheres of the country’s socio-political life in which the Ministry of Internal Affairs forms the State policy and exercises its powers as a security and defence sector entity with the aim of ensuring sustainable development of the State and protecting vital interests of a person and society.

: Over the past decade, the cyber threat to critical infrastructure has grown to potentially catastrophic dimensions. Critical Infrastructure protection has become a matter of national security, public safety, and economic stability. It is imperative the U.S. Government (USG) examine current responsibilities, develop a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, cybersecurity regulations, impose standards, and enforce the strongest security measures possible to protect the Nation from cyber attacks to critical infrastructure. This paper provides a background of what constitutes national critical infrastructure and Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), discusses the immense vulnerabilities, threats, and risks associated in the protection of critical infrastructure, and outlines governance and responsibilities of protecting vulnerable infrastructure. Finally, the paper will make recommendations for federal responsibilities and legislation to direct nation critical infrastructure efforts to ensure national security, public safety and economic stability.

In 2008, the European Union regulated the basics of the protection of critical infrastructures in a directive. The Member States therefore had to ensure that – in addition to the freedom of the method and means of implementation – the provisions of the directive were transposed into their national legal order. Accordingly, some Member States may define different detailed rules. The detailed rules related to the protection of critical infrastructures (e.g. the designation thresholds) are not public in several Member States, but in Germany and Hungary they have been recorded at the legislative level. In my study, I compare the rules related to the protection of critical healthcare infrastructures, including inpatient care institutions, primarily based on legal sources and the experiences of my study tour in Germany, from the selection criteria system to crisis planning. The good practices resulting from the differences and similarities to be discovered can help to revise and standardise the rules and practices related to the protection of critical health infrastructures.

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has been widely employed to optimize the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in various scenarios, particularly because of its efficiency in handling both single and multi-objective optimization problems. In this paper, a framework for optimizing the deployment of edge-enabled UAVs using Pareto-PSO is proposed for data collection scenarios in which UAVs operate autonomously and execute onboard distributed multi-objective PSO to maximize the total non-overlapping coverage area while minimizing latency and energy consumption. Performance evaluation is conducted using key indicators, including convergence time, throughput, and total non-overlapping coverage area across bandwidth and swarm-size sweeps. Simulation results demonstrate that the Pareto-PSO consistently attains the highest throughput and the largest coverage envelope, while exhibiting moderate and scalable convergence times. These results highlight the advantage of treating the objectives as a vector-valued objective in Pareto-PSO for real-time, scalable, and energy-aware edge-UAV deployment in dynamic Internet of Flying Things environments.

In this paper, the problem of optimizing the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with visible light communication (VLC) capabilities is studied. In the studied model, the UAVs can simultaneously provide communications and illumination to service ground users. Ambient illumination increases the interference over VLC links while reducing the illumination threshold of the UAVs. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the illumination distribution of the target area for UAV deployment optimization. This problem is formulated as an optimization problem whose goal is to minimize the total transmit power while meeting the illumination and communication requirements of users. To solve this problem, an algorithm based on the machine learning framework of gated recurrent units (GRUs) is proposed. Using GRUs, the UAVs can model the long-term historical illumination distribution and predict the future illumination distribution. In order to reduce the complexity of the prediction algorithm while accurately predicting the illumination distribution, a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is used to fit the illumination distribution of the target area at each time slot. Based on the predicted illumination distribution, the optimization problem is proved to be a convex optimization problem that can be solved by using duality. Simulations using real data from the Earth observations group (EOG) at NOAA/NCEI show that the proposed approach can achieve up to 22.1% reduction in transmit power compared to a conventional optimal UAV deployment that does not consider the illumination distribution. The results also show that UAVs must hover at areas having strong illumination, thus providing useful guidelines on the deployment of VLC-enabled UAVs.