Chapter 9 - The Cyber Adversary in Groups: Targeting Nations' Critical Infrastructures

Abstract

A critical infrastructure is a vital physical or cyber asset or system, the destruction of which would destabilize a national economy or way of life or jeopardize national security. Some examples of these infrastructures are energy grids, transportation systems, telecommunications networks, emergency first responders, health-care facilities, and government organizations. A nation's critical infrastructures depend on the reliability of two key systems, which are also considered critical infrastructures: the electric power grid and communications networks. Attacks on either of these systems have the potential to cause ripple effects in other infrastructures and could lead to a national economic collapse. A relative newcomer to the infrastructure community is the global Internet, a massive “network of networks” that sprang from a loose collection of academic, private, military, and government computer networks in the 1970s and 1980s. The Internet is largely unregulated that is controlled by rules that are more like technical guidelines rather than rigid government-enforced laws and agreements. There are no government backup plans, no mandated safety features, and no restrictions on who can connect to the Internet. Because of critical infrastructures' growing dependence on the Internet for the movement of information and data, nations are in jeopardy of becoming victims of economic or national security attacks manifested via attacks on the Internet itself. Threats to the Internet are increasing rapidly, whereas the rate of developing new methods for detecting and averting these threats in real time is growing very slowly.