General Security and Resilience

In the spirit of Infrastructure Security Month (ISM), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) just released its Infrastructure Dependency Primer (IDP). According to CISA, the IDP was created to “to help state, local, tribal, and territorial planners and decisionmakers better understand how infrastructure dependencies can impact community risk and resilience and how to incorporate that knowledge into ongoing community planning.” The IDP is an online educational resource divided into three main sections: Learn, Plan, and Implement.

Continuing with the theme of Infrastructure Security Month, WaterISAC is spotlighting utilities working to increase their resilience to counter all-hazard threats.

The theme for the second week of Infrastructure Security Month (ISM) is “Plan for Soft Target Security,” a reminder to take steps to identify and address basic security vulnerabilities that could otherwise be easily exploited by threat actors. Much of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA’s) messaging on this theme focuses on security for mass gatherings, noting the potential for targeting by threat actors, but CISA also emphasizes terrorists and violent extremists target infrastructure to inflict significant personal harm to civilian populations.

An incident last year in Pennsylvania, in which a commercial drone breached a power substation, demonstrates how threat actors might use these devices and other improvised methods to target vulnerable infrastructure. The drone had a thick copper wire attached to it its ends via electrical tape but crashed before it could reach its likely target. A federal government report on the incident emphasized the uniqueness of the incident and the likelihood of malicious intent on the part of the perpetrator(s).