I found out yesterday that a chapter that I was asked to contribute to a forthcoming book on critical infrastructure protection has been accepted for publication. The chapter is titled, “Motivating Cybersecurity: Assessing the Status of Critical Infrastructure as an Object of Cyber Threats.†The abstract is pasted below. If you are interested in reading the entire paper, shoot me an email and I will be happy to send it your way. (sean -dot- lawson -at- utah.edu)
ABSTRACT
Based on an analysis of key policy documents and statements from civilian policymakers, military leaders, and cybersecurity experts, this chapter demonstrates that although there is still concern over cyber threats to critical infrastructure, other threat objects have begun to figure more prominently in public policy discourse about cybersecurity in the United States. In particular, intellectual property and government secrets are now identified most often as the primary object of cyber threats. When critical infrastructure is mentioned, it is often used as a motivational tactic, with collapse of critical infrastructure serving as a central theme of hypothetical scenarios meant to motivate a policy response. This chapter documents and critically evaluates this shift in the U.S. cybersecurity discourse.
FULL CITATION
“Motivating Cybersecurity: Assessing the Status of Critical Infrastructure as an Object of Cyber Threats,†in Securing Critical Infrastructures and Industrial Control Systems: Approaches for Threat Protection, Badii, Atta and Laing, Christopher (eds.) (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, forthcoming).