Critical Infrastructure Mania

Fred Donovan

InfoSecurity Magazine

19 June 2012

PA’s Ed Savage, a cyber security expert, is quoted in an article in InfoSecurity Magazine. Ed comments on the risks to critical infrastructure from hackers, terrorists, and state actors and how these can best be defended.

Ed talks about how public-private partnerships and information sharing about threats and vulnerabilities between the government and industry are among the best tools to improve defences: “Public-private partnerships are critical. Their most pressing challenge is expanding awareness and trying to get better at sharing the latest threat information faster, so that a problem in one area is known by everyone else.”

Ed notes that a few years ago the UK government set up the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) to provide cyber security information, advice, and expertise to industry through industry-specific groups. “Those networks of information sharing work very well indeed. As a result, the general level of awareness and approach is pretty good”, he says.

Sharing information between government and the private sector can be challenging at times, Ed admits. “There is a high sensitivity in sharing that information and a high degree of trust is needed to make that work”, he says.

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