Critical Information Infrastructures: Resilience and Protection

Resilience is an increasingly important concept and quality in today’s world. It is particularly important in the area of Critical Infrastructures. It is crucial in the area of Critical Information Infrastructure. This is because, since the year 2000, man has been dependent on information and telecommunications systems for survival, particularly in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and because all other Critical Inf- structures depend upon, to a greater or lesser extent, Critical Information 1,2 Infrastructure. Until, probably, the late 1980s it would be fair to say that the defense of individual nation states depended upon a mixture of political will and armed might. The fall of the Berlin Wall may have effectively ended the Cold War, and with it a bipolar world, but it brought globalization and a multipolar digital world in its wake. Simply put, a number of power vacuums were created and these have yet to be fully filled and settled. In this “New World” many changes were afoot. These changes include the increasing irrelevance of nation states in federated structures and the export of democracy on the back of globalization. One of the biggest changes, though, is the use of digital technolo gy by the OECD countries. This is on such a scale that these countries have become both dependent upon information technology and as individual 3 states largely irrelevant to the new “global” electronic economy. 1 This adaptation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is attributed to KPMG.

Table of Contents:
Definitions and Assumptions.- Critical Infrastructures and Critical Information Infrastructures: Approaches by Geography.- Critical Infrastructures and Critical Information Infrastructures: by Type.- Critical Information Infrastructure.- Some Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal and Other Process Effects on Critical Infrastructures.- Comments on Standards in Information Security, Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and Business Resilience.- A Tangential Threat To OECD Resilience: The Twenty-First Century East India Company.- Resilience and Outsourcing Call Centers Offshore: A Case Study.- Information Infrastructure: Resilience, Recovery, and Security.- A Suggested Approach to Individual, Corporate, National, and International Resilience, Critical Infrastructures, and Critical Information Infrastructures.- General Summary and Conclusions.- A Manifesto for Change.

Review :
From the reviews: A very interesting and informative book that covers a wide but interlinked set of subjects. Indeed, attention has been paid to assisting the reader to understand complex and current issues, and it can be said that the work is extremely well researched, up-to-date and of interest to a wide audience including practising managers, government representatives, policy advisors, academic researchers and students of resilience. The work is concise and to the point and allows the reader to familiarize themselves speedily with a number of pressing security issues. The historical points cited are useful with respect to underpinning the key themes covered and the well crafted writing style assists the reader throughout. It can also be stated that the insights and examples drawn from various countries and the public-private sector issues raised are worthy of inclusion. The points made in Chapter 13: A Manifesto for Change, are well argued and should be taken up by policy makers as they are relevant and necessary. -- CAMIS Newsletter, Volume 3, Number 5, 2007 "The book focuses on the protection of critical information infrastructures, and providing for resilience in recovery following successful attacks. … The book is probably best used in one of two ways: to skim, in order to get a quick overview of the issues and Hyslop’s thoughts on solutions … or to build one’s own view by reading and evaluating the arguments and solutions, and then using the references in the bibliography to obtain additional information." (Gordon B. Davis, ACM Computing Reviews, Vol. 49 (12), December, 2008)