Critical Infrastructure Vulnerabilities
Recent events in France and the United States highlight the vulnerability of our nation’s critical infrastructure systems. While much attention has been directed, appropriately so, to cybersecurity of the electrical grid, there are other physical threats to a multitude of infrastructure systems.
In France on the lead-up to the Summer Olympics there was a physical and multi-point attack on the national rail transportation system that impacted the highspeed train network by cutting communications fiberoptic cables. Another attack followed a few days later.
In the United States a 17-year-old was recently arrested for derailing a BNSF freight train by tampering with a physical track switch. He documented the derailment via a video and posted it to YouTube. I guess you could call this specific incident “vandalism” since there did not appear to be any political or personal motive. One side comment I’d add is that the story reports that a “Train Conductor” was interviewed and could not stop the train in time. Well, my Father was an Illinois Railroad engineer and likely the person “on a freight train” who was interviewed was “an engineer” and not a conductor. Some trains now run with only one person on the engine, with safety and labor unions arguing that two are needed. The second person would be a switchman or brakeman (I don’t know the current terminology).
Another indication that there are people out there looking to cause damages to our nation’s infrastructure included the 20-year-old who attempted to assassinate former President Trump. His digital fingerprints indicated that he has looked at how the electrical grid here in the United States could be physically attacked. All that would take is a rifle. If you have never heard of it, there is the Metcalf Sniper Attack that occurred in California back in 2013. That case is still unsolved and shows how easy a major substation could be taken “off-line” by a single individual who knows what to shoot at.
All of the above highlights how ubiquitous our critical infrastructure is to physical attacks. We have thousand upon thousands of miles of unprotected electrical, transportation and telecommunications systems that are many times located in remote locations. While fencing and signs may keep “honest people” out of these locations, others looking to do harm can easily make a statement by destroying or disabling portions of a system.
I will close with this. “If you see something—say something.” When something does not look quite right. All of us can help protect our infrastructures by being observant and reporting things that look out of the ordinary, be they people or the potential for physical damages.
