ABSTRACT
Critical infrastructure consists of both physical and cyberbased systems (along with their assets) that are essential to an economic state such that the disruption or destruction of their operations would have a debilitating impact on the security, public health, and safety of that economy. This transpires worldwide. These systems (and their assets) provide essential, yet vital, products and services to our economies, which include products such as food and critical manufactured products, or services such as our electricity, water, and wastewater treatment facilities, chemical and oil production facilities, and transportation modes. All these are essential to the operations of economies and their governments. Threats in recent years have underscored the need to protect many of our infrastructures. If vulnerabilities in these infrastructures are exploited, our critical infrastructures could be disrupted, disabled, possibly causing loss of life, physical damage, and economic losses (U.S. General Accounting Office 2007). A majority of the infrastructures worldwide are owned and operated privately by corporations.
