The Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month is celebrated this November. One month is devoted to increasing knowledge of why fortifying critical infrastructure security and resilience is important. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) leads the yearly program, which focuses on teaching critical infrastructure owners, workers, the government, and the public regarding the function of critical infrastructure in society and the economy; the dependence of the safety and protection of the nation on the capability of critical infrastructure owners to manage and stand up to physical and cyber threats; and to make certain that steps are undertaken to enhance security and resilience.
Ransomware groups target critical infrastructure because of the resulting massive disruption, which increases the likelihood of getting ransom payments. State-sponsored threat actors attack critical infrastructure to acquire sensitive data or cause detrimental outcomes causing economic and social turmoil as well as fear and doubt. Hacktivists and online hackers likewise attack critical infrastructure entities to become popular.
In the last few years, many attacks caused substantial disruption, including attacks on healthcare companies that have endangered their capability to provide healthcare services. This 2024, the Change Healthcare ransomware attack disrupted healthcare services throughout the country. A cyberattack on an NHS pathology company resulted in a shortage of blood supply throughout London. In 2021, the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) was attacked making all IT systems inaccessible and thus disrupting healthcare services throughout the country. The Colonial Pipeline attack disrupted the supply of fuel to the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The world’s biggest meat processing firm, JBS, encountered an attack that disrupted its food supplies. These incidents demonstrate the extensive impact of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
This 2024, President Biden called upon Americans to realize the importance of safeguarding the Nation’s infrastructure and to follow proper measures to improve national security and resilience. With the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and CHIPS and Science Act, the government is spending billions of dollars to protect and strengthen infrastructure. That includes bettering the electric grid so people can sustain power in any circumstance, raising roads and bridges over probable flood areas, financing community resilience projects, and others. These investments helped to safeguard Americans and have benefited the economy, producing job opportunities and new opportunities for communities.
This year’s theme for the Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month is “Resolve to be Resilient.” In relation to this, CISA is giving tips on how critical infrastructure organizations could incorporate strategies to boost security and resilience, enabling them to fight threats and recover immediately whenever disruptions happen.
The information, which is also important to HIPAA training, includes determining critical systems and resources and knowing their potential dependencies on other infrastructure systems and resources; evaluating risks and vulnerabilities and the effects of the threats and dangers they could present; creating actionable incident response and recovery programs and; doing exercises of those plans considering realistic circumstances and constantly enhancing those plans to guarantee efficiency and effectiveness.
CISA’s Executive Assistant Director for Infrastructure Security, Dr. David Mussington, said that resilience must be integrated into the preparedness planning. The whole community is responsible for getting ready and safeguarding the nation’s critical infrastructure and securing the important services it delivers. Hence, if something does happen, there is a better response and recovery from the effects.
