Critical Infrastructure Protection

Background
Project Team
Resources
Graduate Curriculum

Background

Critical infrastructure and the control systems that support our nation’s infrastructure have not been an area of focus in the public policy community up to now. The concept of "critical infrastructure protection" (CIP), which came into being in the mid-1990s, was placed at the forefront of U.S. national security concerns after the events of 9/11. CIP methods and resources are intended to deter or mitigate incidents caused maliciously (by terrorists or criminals), by accident or human error (chemical spills, accidental release of hazardous materials), or as the result of a natural disaster (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods).

The debate has largely been confined to the technical community, perhaps because of the technical knowledge requirements and inherently interdisciplinary nature of the subject. However, decisions are being made that may have far-reaching and unintended public policy consequences. For example, most control systems built for the energy industry were not designed with security in mind and now must be retooled. As well, policymakers need to be better informed about the technical considerations of CIP.

In conjunction with the Control Systems Security Center at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), IGCC and the Center for Science and Technology Policy at George Mason University have produced a public policy-focused curriculum intended to help to implement a long-term security culture within the control system community.

The Critical Infrastructure and Control Systems Security Curriculum

The primary audiences for the graduate-level curriculum are masters students in policy, engineers needing policy background at the graduate level, and MBA students likely to need these skills in management of critical infrastructure enterprises. Other who may find it useful are individuals responsible for managing the risks faced by critical infrastructures, either in the private sector or government, and who may undertake self study using the curriculum materials or may wish to condense the material into a short course of on-the-job training. The course presents critical infrastructure vulnerability and risk as growing problems in democratic, market economies, requiring more sophisticated solutions through engineering, economic incentives and public-private institutional arrangements. An emphasis has been placed on control systems vulnerabilities .

A survey of similar course offerings from other institutions found many rather narrow offerings on each of three sets of issues: 1) the technical details of control systems and their vulnerabilities; 2) the nature of terrorism and means for contending with terrorist threats; or 3) the problems faced by first responders after the disaster has occurred. The curriculum developed by IGCC and George Mason University attempts to broaden knowledge across these issues in the following ways:

1. It is specifically devoted to a range of critical infrastructure services and their interdependencies.
2. It deals with "all hazards," that is, not only terrorism but natural disasters and the unintended consequences of accidents, poor management, results of inappropriate government regulatory policy, and inadequate technology and system designs.
3. It integrates the public policy tools for inducing private firms to invest in mitigation of threats and increasing resilience.
4. It gets into technical specifics about the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure service delivery, with special emphasis on those services dependent on control systems reliability and recoverability.
5. It recognizes the international dimensions of both threats and solutions, and examines alternative public-private relationships and modes of governance.
6. It explores the management and organizational experience of firms that have learned how to provide consistently high reliability in their service delivery.

Project Team

Lewis M. Branscomb holds faculty appointments in the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. He is also Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Corporate Management Director Emeritus of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program in the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Prof. Branscomb graduated summa cum laude from Duke University in 1945 and received his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 1949. A research physicist at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce, (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) from 1951 to 1969, he was appointed director of NBS in 1969 by President Nixon. He left NBS in 1972 to become vice president and chief scientist of the IBM Corporation, serving until 1986, when he joined the faculty at Harvard.

President Johnson named Branscomb to the President's Science Advisory Committee in 1964, and he chaired the subcommittee on Space Science and Technology during Project Apollo. President Carter appointed him to the National Science Board, and he served as chairman of the NSB during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Branscomb was the co-chairman of the project of the National Academies of Science and of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine that authored the report Making the Nation Safer: Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism (National Academies Press, 2002). He has been actively engaged in promoting bilateral cooperation in counter-terrorism with India, Russia, Japan, and Korea. He is a member of the Control Systems Security Program (CSSP) for the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) of the Department of Homeland Security.

Principal Investigator Susan Shirk is director of IGCC and professor of political science in the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego. From 1997 to 2000, Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia.

Prof. Shirk founded in 1993 and continues to lead the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD), a “track two,” or unofficial, forum for discussions of security issues among defense and foreign ministry officials and academics from the United States, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea.

Prof. Shirk’s publications include her books How China Opened Its Door: The Political Success of the PRC’s Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms; The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China; and Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China. Her latest book, China: Fragile Superpower, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

Shirk served as a member of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, the Board of Governors for the East–West Center (Hawaii), the Board of Trustees of the U.S.–Japan Foundation, and the Board of Directors of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an emeritus member of the Aspen Strategy Group. As senior advisor to the Albright Group, Prof. Shirk advises private-sector clients on China and East Asia. She received her B.A. in political science from Mount Holyoke College, her M.A. in Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Project Manager Raymond A. Clark is program manager for IGCC's "Public Policy and Biological Threats" (PPBT) program. Clark joined IGCC in early 2005 after serving as a policy analyst with the Office of Government and Community Relations at UC San Diego. He has a Ph.D. in cardiovascular physiology and previously worked as a research associate in molecular cardiology in the UC San Diego School of Medicine. In addition to managing and expanding the PPBT program, Clark is involved in developing several IGCC programs in homeland security, national security, and public health security. He is also a founding board member of the National Postdoctoral Association and has been influential in formulating policy for the scientific workforce in the United States.

LLNL Advisor Brian Lopez is a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). For the past eight years, he has led LLNL's Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Program (VRAP) which provides in-depth, multidisciplinary assessments of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. Past projects include work in twenty-six U.S. states and internationally across a variety of sectors such as electric power, oil, gas, water, chemical, aviation, rail, maritime, telecommunications, national icons, and classified sites. He assembled and led security teams for the 2002 Winter Olympics, the California energy crisis, and 9/11 response. Currently he is leading a comprehensive assessment of a thirty-four-city region for the Department of Homeland Security. His previous work has been in the areas of nuclear material tracking, secure systems design, knowledge management, and counter-terrorism.

Consultant Michael J. Kleeman is an independent consultant working in technology and health- related areas. He served as the chief technology officer for Catenas, a network of professional services firms, and Aerie Networks, a new long-distance provider in the United States. Previously he was a senior technology partner in a global consulting firm, specializing in the telecommunications, Internet and computer/information areas. Kleeman has more than twenty-five years of experience in telecommunications and information systems-related business strategy, technology design, economic analysis and complex project management. He has also worked on the design and implementation of networks for voice and data communications, including carrier and private networks, in both domestic and international arenas. He has extensive industry expertise in the technology/computer, commercial, government, financial, and health areas, both as a consultant and as an operating manager. His background includes work for local and inter-exchange carriers, network and computer hardware and software vendors, user organizations, and national agencies.

Kleeman has been the lead designer and project manager for numerous telecommunications projects, for a wide range of user, carrier, and vendor organizations. In addition to these specific activities he has worked with numerous clients on new business strategy (especially new market entry or product launch), technology planning, LBO/restructuring of technology firms, contingent planning in dynamic markets, and international communications