Critical utility infrastructural resilience

The problem of security and dependability, or generically speaking, resilience [1] of Internet-oriented infrastructure systems, such as web server compounds, is reasonably well understood. Although it is not completely mastered (for example, denial of service is still a research subject), it is receiving adequate attention. However, such is not the case with the problem of resilience of critical utility infrastructures. This problem is not completely understood, mainly due to the hybrid composition of these infrastructures. The process control of utility infrastructures is based on the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems which yield the operational ability to acquire data, supervise and control whatever is the business in question (electricity, water, gas, telecomm). However, they also have interconnections to the standard corporate intranets, and hence indirectly to the Internet (e.g., remote access via dedicated or public networks). The aforementioned SCADA systems were classically not designed to be widely distributed and remotely accessed, let alone be open. They grew-up standalone, closed, not having security in mind.....