Technology Assessment: Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Protection

Many cybersecurity technologies that can be used to protect critical infrastructures from cyber attack are currently available, while other technologies are still being researched and developed. These technologies, including access control technologies, system integrity technologies, cryptography, audit and monitoring tools, and configuration management and assurance technologies, can help to protect information that is being processed, stored, and transmitted in the networked computer systems that are prevalent in critical infrastructures.

GAO-04-321 Technology Assessment: Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Protection

This book provides a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art techniques for the security of critical infrastructures, addressing both logical and physical aspects from an engineering point of view. Recently developed methodologies and tools for CI analysis as well as strategies and technologies for CI protection are investigated in the following strongly interrelated and multidisciplinary main fields: - Vulnerability analysis and risk assessment - Threat prevention, detection and response - Emergency planning and management Each of the aforementioned topics is addressed considering both theoretical aspects and practical applications. Emphasis is given to model-based holistic evaluation approaches as well as to emerging protection technologies, including smart surveillance through networks of intelligent sensing devices. Critical Infrastructure Security can be used as a self-contained reference handbook for both practitioners and researchers or even as a textbook for master/doctoral degree students in engineering or related disciplines.More specifically, the topic coverage of the book includes: - Historical background on threats to critical infrastructures - Model-based risk evaluation and management approaches - Security surveys and game-theoretic vulnerability assessment - Federated simulation for interdependency analysis - Security operator training and emergency preparedness - Intelligent multimedia (audio-video) surveillance - Terahertz body scanners for weapon and explosive detection - Security system design (intrusion detection / access control) - Dependability and resilience of computer networks (SCADA / cyber-security) - Wireless smart-sensor networks and structural health monitoring - Information systems for crisis response and emergency management - Early warning, situation awareness and decision support software

This book presents the latest trends in attacks and protection methods of Critical Infrastructures. It describes original research models and applied solutions for protecting major emerging threats in Critical Infrastructures and their underlying networks. It presents a number of emerging endeavors, from newly adopted technical expertise in industrial security to efficient modeling and implementation of attacks and relevant security measures in industrial control systems; including advancements in hardware and services security, interdependency networks, risk analysis, and control systems security along with their underlying protocols. Novel attacks against Critical Infrastructures (CI) demand novel security solutions. Simply adding more of what is done already (e.g. more thorough risk assessments, more expensive Intrusion Prevention/Detection Systems, more efficient firewalls, etc.) is simply not enough against threats and attacks that seem to have evolved beyond modern analyses and protection methods. The knowledge presented here will help Critical Infrastructure authorities, security officers, Industrial Control Systems (ICS) personnel and relevant researchers to (i) get acquainted with advancements in the field, (ii) integrate security research into their industrial or research work, (iii) evolve current practices in modeling and analyzing Critical Infrastructures, and (iv) moderate potential crises and emergencies influencing or emerging from Critical Infrastructures.