Earlier this week I was advocating that Climate Change/Global Warming and its impacts should be part of your Hazard Identification Vulnerability Assessment (HIVA0. Another "hazard" is cyber attacks. As Government increasingly moves towards e-government solutions we are becoming more and more dependent on the Internet and technology to do our daily business.
Our critical infrastructure that supports our communities and the normal commerce of everyday living is highly dependent the connectivity and functioning networks that keep our modern world running. See Advanced Cyber-Attacks on the Rise in 2010
I think if you cracked open the books and looked at the vulnerabilities in your community you would be amazed at what you find. The issue here is that just because you are in "podunk" Iowa or Montana, it doesn't mean you are immune. Because of the viral natural of the attacks and many centralize systems you can be linked to a broader attack against an organization on the other side of the country.
TOPOFF 2 included a cyber component before the dirty bomb and it was a revealing event that showed our interconnectedness and how on a day to day basis government and industry is not interacting on this type of issue.
All of the above is another reason to get to know your Chief Information Officer (CIO) and start bonding. Activating your EOC for instance is I think a proper solution to handle the consequence management part of "things" no longer working. But, there needs to be a connection to the IT side of things because in this case--they are "Disaster Operations" on the front line fighting the good fight. You need to bring them into the fold before there is an event.
There is lots that remains to be done on this topic!
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Our critical infrastructure that supports our communities and the normal commerce of everyday living is highly dependent the connectivity and functioning networks that keep our modern world running. See Advanced Cyber-Attacks on the Rise in 2010
I think if you cracked open the books and looked at the vulnerabilities in your community you would be amazed at what you find. The issue here is that just because you are in "podunk" Iowa or Montana, it doesn't mean you are immune. Because of the viral natural of the attacks and many centralize systems you can be linked to a broader attack against an organization on the other side of the country.
TOPOFF 2 included a cyber component before the dirty bomb and it was a revealing event that showed our interconnectedness and how on a day to day basis government and industry is not interacting on this type of issue.
All of the above is another reason to get to know your Chief Information Officer (CIO) and start bonding. Activating your EOC for instance is I think a proper solution to handle the consequence management part of "things" no longer working. But, there needs to be a connection to the IT side of things because in this case--they are "Disaster Operations" on the front line fighting the good fight. You need to bring them into the fold before there is an event.
There is lots that remains to be done on this topic!
