U.S. Critical Infrastructure At Risk Of Increasing Cyberattacks. Here’s What You Need To Know

Vint Cerf

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What do you think of when you hear “critical infrastructure”? A bridge? A power station? A train?

What about when a child drinks from a water fountain in a park? Or when a teacher uses AI to help students learn? Or when boarding your flight on a holiday weekend?

We don’t often think of the systems that underpin these and so many other daily activities, but the fact is that these processes are increasingly digitized, and they’re often reliant on networks and systems that were built without security at the forefront of the design.

While such systems ground our energy, health, water, telecommunications, and agriculture sectors—among many others—they are increasingly vulnerable to malicious cyber activity, and the attackers are upping their game.

Earlier this year, U.S. cybersecurity officials warned about state-sponsored malicious cyber actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China, including a well-known cyber attacker, Volt Typhoon, that were compromising and maintaining persistent access to U.S. critical infrastructure for future disruptive activities should a conflict with China arise.