Increasing cyber threats, like the May 2021 ransomware cyberattack on an American oil pipeline system that led to regional gas shortages, represent a significant national security challenge.
Writing for Homeland Security Today earlier this month, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Ted P. Delacourt said “fewer strategies than cyber attacks can offer better plausible deniability and can cause greater anxiety and instability to our society than targeting the systems and networks that enable our day-to-day activities”.
Delacourt explained how an attack on one critical infrastructure sector may initiate a failure in another or cascade to the entire interconnected network. Further, “the mix of public, private, and non-governmental operations across each critical infrastructure sector complicates remediation of identified vulnerabilities and information sharing on actual or potential attacks.”
To help protect U.S. critical infrastructure from cyber attacks, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed cybersecurity standards and procedures that organizations within these sectors may voluntarily use.
Federal agencies with a lead role to assist and protect…
