Threats to Critical Infrastructure

Bridget R. Kane, Stephen Webber, Katherine H. Tucker, Sam Wallace, Joan Chang, Devin McCarthy, Dennis Murphy, Daniel Egel, Tom Wingfield

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U.S. critical infrastructure supports the prosperity of the nation and its people. It permeates the daily lives of citizens, underpinning the safety and security of the general public and ensuring the economic well-being of the nation, yet the health of these assets, systems, networks, and facilities is often taken for granted. In this report, the authors analyze threats and hazards to critical infrastructure and examine the vectors by which an adversary might conduct attacks against the homeland. They also look at the cascading effects of an attack and other impacts resulting from infrastructure age and maintenance and from weather challenges, and they offer characterizations of various types of threat actors and vectors to raise awareness of systemic vulnerabilities and threat environments that can affect critical U.S. infrastructure.