- Email: [email protected]
What makes critical infrastructures Critical?
I N T E R N AT I O N A L J O U R N A L O F C R I T I C A L I N F R A S T R U C T U R E P R O T E C T I O N
3 (2010) 53–54
available at www.sciencedirect.com
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijcip
What makes critical infrastructures Critical? Fred Cohen ∗ 572 Leona Drive, Livermore, California 94550, USA
A R T I C L E
I N F O
Article history: Received 4 June 2010 Accepted 4 June 2010
Some things are clear about the long-term survival of the human race: 1. The human race will have to travel to and live on or in other planets, star systems and galaxies in order to survive Earthly catastrophes, the collapse of the Sun and the collision of the Milky Way with another galaxy. 2. To do this, we will need to continue to develop in the scientific and technological disciplines; and work together, not just in the theoretical sense, but in very practical ways, to develop large-scale long-term capabilities in these areas. 3. To do this, we will have to survive the catastrophes that are most certain to befall us on Earth between now and the time when we are able to leap from here to elsewhere. This leads to the basic concept of critical infrastructures. As long as we depend on planet Earth for survival, it is critical. We have to assure its continued operation to within reasonable specifications and tolerances to ensure our own survival. The Earth is a critical infrastructure. But this is not enough. We also need to progress as a species (or become dominated by another superior species) to make the progress required to leap from here to elsewhere. Redundancy is the only hope of survival for any system over the ravages of time. Planetary and, eventually, galactic redundancy is required. In order to attain this level of redundancy, it is necessary that science and engineering continue to develop. Thus, the educational system, the scientific and engineering disciplines, and everything they depend on become critical infrastructures as well.
For humankind to survive and ultimately thrive, we need adequate air, water and resources of all sorts, not just to live, but to make progress toward long-term human space survival and travel. We will have to understand the world and its workings at every level, and find ways to control all that we perceive to be vital. A critical infrastructure is something that people depend on, either directly or indirectly, for their lives and well being, in any time frame. The lack of breathable air probably kills us the fastest. One could argue that extreme heat, cold or pressure will kill faster, but we usually discuss critical infrastructures in the context of the environment we live in, so unless you live in a volcano, in the Arctic Circle or deep under the sea, breathable air is it. Water, food and shelter come next. People living in the world’s cities also depend on farming, transportation, refrigeration, heating and financial transactions or trading of some sort. And all of these things depend on power, fossil fuels, communications, weather, the environment and so on. Then again, most of these things depend on manufacturing processes, materials, machinery and other components that have to come from somewhere. And these ultimately start with natural resources that are transformed by various processes into useful parts and assemblies. Whether we need chemicals to make fertilizer, bags to hold the fertilizer or wheels for trucks to transport the fertilizer, all of the processing that is not done by hand is done using components that eventually become critical infrastructure elements. Critical, when you may not have them long enough.
∗ Corresponding address: Fred Cohen & Associates, California Sciences Institute, Livermore, California 94550, USA. Tel.: +1 925 454 0171; fax: +1 925 454 0171. E-mail address: [email protected]. c 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1874-5482/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.ijcip.2010.06.002
54
I N T E R N AT I O N A L J O U R N A L O F C R I T I C A L I N F R A S T R U C T U R E P R O T E C T I O N
Infrastructure, when many people share and/or depend on them. Somewhere along the way we begin to notice that people make all this “stuff” happen, which means that we need things like medical care, disease control, social mores and so on. Since people are imperfect in many ways, emergency services like police, fire departments and a justice system are also critical if chaos is to be avoided. And did I forget to mention waste disposal, which will require recycling to avoid our inundation? None of the things we rely on can remain stable without continuity of government and the various supporting systems and institutions. For us to gain the knowledge we need to keep modern society running, we need educational systems from kindergarten through graduate school and continuing professional education, which means teachers, curricula, libraries, the Internet, professions, professional societies, etc. Before long, we discover that it is a hostile world and we need military capabilities, research and development to stay on top of the changing world, and on and on and on. In fact, if we adopt a broad enough view, critical infrastructures cover everything, including art and entertainment, which we need in order to stay sane. This is the first part of critical infrastructure protection. The second part is the protection of all these things. When I say protection, I mean “keeping from harm”. Protection is something we do, not something we buy, set up and forget. Protection is something that we have to keep doing to prevent things from decaying. Critical infrastructure protection is something we must keep doing to prevent society from decaying. Yes, critical infrastructure protection is really about keeping modern society from decaying. If you agree with the novelist and poet, Chinua Achebe, you know that Things Fall Apart, and, indeed, they have a tendency to do so unless someone works to keep them together. This is the challenge of critical infrastructure protection — to overcome the second law of thermodynamics in a limited space so that, as the universe decays around us, we manage to maintain order and survive, by growing and progressing, because simply living will kill us as a species. In a sense, this is what protection experts do — they spend their professional lives struggling against the nature of people and things in order to keep societies together and working properly.
3 (2010) 53–54
If you live in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the great plains of Africa, in the rural areas of China or in other similar places, you have little or no infrastructure. There are the occasional villages where trade takes place. Other than that, the infrastructure is completely optional, largely undependable and the society you live in is fairly sparse and dependent on small groups or individual skills. You are a hunter-gatherer or a farmer or a member of a small tribe. You depend very little on infrastructures and few infrastructures, if any, are critical to you. But if you continue to live like this, you are doomed to die off as the Earth decays. Numerous knowledgeable, skilled, hard working and well meaning people spend their lives creating and operating the critical infrastructures. If they are properly resourced and allowed to do their jobs, they will build, support, operate, improve and continue to run these critical infrastructures for as long as humanity survives. If they do these things well, with an understanding of the global implications of their efforts and with proper respect for all the other infrastructures, this will be for a very long time indeed. Critical infrastructure protection is about how to do all these things and do them well, even in the face of malicious acts by malevolent actors, the rages of nature ranging from asteroid impact to biological damage to the blue-green algae, and the limitations of human beings as individuals and groups. The race is on to see if our capacity to deal with the human social creature can be enhanced by the advancement of science, engineering, technology and intellect. And if our capacity to organize on a global scale can beat the ravages of time, disease, the orbits of celestial bodies and our own human limitations. In the balance stands the survival of the human species. This is what puts the Critical in Critical Infrastructure Protection. Dr. Fred Cohen is the President of California Sciences Institute and the CEO of Fred Cohen & Associates, both located in Livermore, California. An avid scientist, scholar and visionary, Dr. Cohen pioneered anti-viral defense techniques and was one of the early researchers in critical infrastructure protection and deception-related defenses. His current research focuses on information protection and digital forensics.
3 (2010) 53–54
available at www.sciencedirect.com
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijcip
What makes critical infrastructures Critical? Fred Cohen ∗ 572 Leona Drive, Livermore, California 94550, USA
A R T I C L E
I N F O
Article history: Received 4 June 2010 Accepted 4 June 2010
Some things are clear about the long-term survival of the human race: 1. The human race will have to travel to and live on or in other planets, star systems and galaxies in order to survive Earthly catastrophes, the collapse of the Sun and the collision of the Milky Way with another galaxy. 2. To do this, we will need to continue to develop in the scientific and technological disciplines; and work together, not just in the theoretical sense, but in very practical ways, to develop large-scale long-term capabilities in these areas. 3. To do this, we will have to survive the catastrophes that are most certain to befall us on Earth between now and the time when we are able to leap from here to elsewhere. This leads to the basic concept of critical infrastructures. As long as we depend on planet Earth for survival, it is critical. We have to assure its continued operation to within reasonable specifications and tolerances to ensure our own survival. The Earth is a critical infrastructure. But this is not enough. We also need to progress as a species (or become dominated by another superior species) to make the progress required to leap from here to elsewhere. Redundancy is the only hope of survival for any system over the ravages of time. Planetary and, eventually, galactic redundancy is required. In order to attain this level of redundancy, it is necessary that science and engineering continue to develop. Thus, the educational system, the scientific and engineering disciplines, and everything they depend on become critical infrastructures as well.
For humankind to survive and ultimately thrive, we need adequate air, water and resources of all sorts, not just to live, but to make progress toward long-term human space survival and travel. We will have to understand the world and its workings at every level, and find ways to control all that we perceive to be vital. A critical infrastructure is something that people depend on, either directly or indirectly, for their lives and well being, in any time frame. The lack of breathable air probably kills us the fastest. One could argue that extreme heat, cold or pressure will kill faster, but we usually discuss critical infrastructures in the context of the environment we live in, so unless you live in a volcano, in the Arctic Circle or deep under the sea, breathable air is it. Water, food and shelter come next. People living in the world’s cities also depend on farming, transportation, refrigeration, heating and financial transactions or trading of some sort. And all of these things depend on power, fossil fuels, communications, weather, the environment and so on. Then again, most of these things depend on manufacturing processes, materials, machinery and other components that have to come from somewhere. And these ultimately start with natural resources that are transformed by various processes into useful parts and assemblies. Whether we need chemicals to make fertilizer, bags to hold the fertilizer or wheels for trucks to transport the fertilizer, all of the processing that is not done by hand is done using components that eventually become critical infrastructure elements. Critical, when you may not have them long enough.
∗ Corresponding address: Fred Cohen & Associates, California Sciences Institute, Livermore, California 94550, USA. Tel.: +1 925 454 0171; fax: +1 925 454 0171. E-mail address: [email protected]. c 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1874-5482/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.ijcip.2010.06.002
54
I N T E R N AT I O N A L J O U R N A L O F C R I T I C A L I N F R A S T R U C T U R E P R O T E C T I O N
Infrastructure, when many people share and/or depend on them. Somewhere along the way we begin to notice that people make all this “stuff” happen, which means that we need things like medical care, disease control, social mores and so on. Since people are imperfect in many ways, emergency services like police, fire departments and a justice system are also critical if chaos is to be avoided. And did I forget to mention waste disposal, which will require recycling to avoid our inundation? None of the things we rely on can remain stable without continuity of government and the various supporting systems and institutions. For us to gain the knowledge we need to keep modern society running, we need educational systems from kindergarten through graduate school and continuing professional education, which means teachers, curricula, libraries, the Internet, professions, professional societies, etc. Before long, we discover that it is a hostile world and we need military capabilities, research and development to stay on top of the changing world, and on and on and on. In fact, if we adopt a broad enough view, critical infrastructures cover everything, including art and entertainment, which we need in order to stay sane. This is the first part of critical infrastructure protection. The second part is the protection of all these things. When I say protection, I mean “keeping from harm”. Protection is something we do, not something we buy, set up and forget. Protection is something that we have to keep doing to prevent things from decaying. Critical infrastructure protection is something we must keep doing to prevent society from decaying. Yes, critical infrastructure protection is really about keeping modern society from decaying. If you agree with the novelist and poet, Chinua Achebe, you know that Things Fall Apart, and, indeed, they have a tendency to do so unless someone works to keep them together. This is the challenge of critical infrastructure protection — to overcome the second law of thermodynamics in a limited space so that, as the universe decays around us, we manage to maintain order and survive, by growing and progressing, because simply living will kill us as a species. In a sense, this is what protection experts do — they spend their professional lives struggling against the nature of people and things in order to keep societies together and working properly.
3 (2010) 53–54
If you live in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the great plains of Africa, in the rural areas of China or in other similar places, you have little or no infrastructure. There are the occasional villages where trade takes place. Other than that, the infrastructure is completely optional, largely undependable and the society you live in is fairly sparse and dependent on small groups or individual skills. You are a hunter-gatherer or a farmer or a member of a small tribe. You depend very little on infrastructures and few infrastructures, if any, are critical to you. But if you continue to live like this, you are doomed to die off as the Earth decays. Numerous knowledgeable, skilled, hard working and well meaning people spend their lives creating and operating the critical infrastructures. If they are properly resourced and allowed to do their jobs, they will build, support, operate, improve and continue to run these critical infrastructures for as long as humanity survives. If they do these things well, with an understanding of the global implications of their efforts and with proper respect for all the other infrastructures, this will be for a very long time indeed. Critical infrastructure protection is about how to do all these things and do them well, even in the face of malicious acts by malevolent actors, the rages of nature ranging from asteroid impact to biological damage to the blue-green algae, and the limitations of human beings as individuals and groups. The race is on to see if our capacity to deal with the human social creature can be enhanced by the advancement of science, engineering, technology and intellect. And if our capacity to organize on a global scale can beat the ravages of time, disease, the orbits of celestial bodies and our own human limitations. In the balance stands the survival of the human species. This is what puts the Critical in Critical Infrastructure Protection. Dr. Fred Cohen is the President of California Sciences Institute and the CEO of Fred Cohen & Associates, both located in Livermore, California. An avid scientist, scholar and visionary, Dr. Cohen pioneered anti-viral defense techniques and was one of the early researchers in critical infrastructure protection and deception-related defenses. His current research focuses on information protection and digital forensics.