Kansas State University Wk 12 Critical Infrastructure by Homeland Security Dicussion

Critical infrastructure security was an area of security that was totally unfamiliar to me until I started my current job working for the utility company 15+ years ago. A security career in the utility sector provides you with the opportunity to draw on everything we have covered in this course(and then some) and continues to challenge me everyday with new opportunities in our ever-changing environment. The timing of this chapter is ironic, as in my full-time job this week I will be participating in scheduled “war games.” Utility companies annually work in partnership with industry partners and government entities, to work through various simulated scenarios with attacks on control systems, communications infrastructure, and physical attacks such as shootings and bombings. We will role play our responses by following our security response procedures and practicing our business continuity plans. The war-games are just one way in which utility companies (and other critical infrastructure) exercise their response and recovery plans to help ensure the reliability of systems and operations. These simulated attacks give you the opportunity to look at partnerships, mutual aid agreements, succession planning, and numerous other aspects of security operations. In our war-games exercises we partner with the Fusion Center, DHS and others to practices the protocols we would depend on if a real event were to happen. This is how you identify the vulnerabilities you may have missed in previous assessments and capture lessons learned to improve on response capabilities and shore up security measures. Chapter is one you should pay particular attention to, whether you pursue a career in public or private security, you are very likely to draw on the knowledge you gain from your reading and analysis this week.