Acts of terrorism were not of great concern to most countries, including the United States, until after September 11, 2001. This day marked the greatest form of terrorism act in the United States and the world. 19 militants of the extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and facilitated four coordinated suicide attacks on some of the greatest structures in the USA. Two of these planes were flown into Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre based in New York City. The third and the fourth planes had hit the Pentagon house and the Pennsylvania field respectively. This resulted in deaths about 3000 people ( Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2003) . As a result, the United States initiated steps towards making the country secure for the purposes of future critical structures and public events. In fact, Homeland Security department was created as a response ( Pyszczynski et al. 2003) . The department was and still is meant to counter terrorism within the country both now and in the future. The department was formed after integrating twenty-two federal departments and agencies in the United States. The Department has a responsibility of protecting the most important infrastructures and events in the country. These infrastructures are critical to the economy, security and the welfare of the citizens of the United States. Brown, Carlyle, Salmerón, and Wood (2006) explains that t hese infrastructures are referred to us the critical infrastructures. This paper looks at the importance of these critical infrastructures, what the department of homeland security can do to protect them and how to reduce their vulnerabilities from the acts of terrorism.
First, it is important to note that critical infrastructures may be virtual or physical. They may be assets, networks, or systems ( Brown et al. 2006) . Their importance comes in because of their support to the people from a region. Such infrastructures when destroyed have a negative impact on the economy, security, health, and welfare of the people. They may include buildings, water, power, technology among others. These infrastructures are sometimes shared with other countries – cross political – and therefore become the responsibility of various governments. Kamien (20120 says that they could be artificial and man-made, for instance, water structures such as dams, energy structures, transportation, communication systems among others. They could also be natural, as earlier mentioned, for instance, mines, groundwater sources among many others. Virtual infrastructures may include things like electronic information and data and cyber data. Kamien (2012) indicates that critical infrastructures are the backbone of any nation, United States included. In the United States, the critical infrastructures are sixteen and support the economy, security, welfare, health, education, food production of the county.
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To protect the critical infrastructures, they have to be identified by the Department of Homeland security (DHS). The department must identify and list the infrastructures based on how they affect the nation positively and the consequences of their destruction. This will enable the DHS to know where to allocate more of the security resources. According to DCSINT (2006), these structures should probably be termed as Mission Essential Vulnerable Areas (MEVAs). DHS has about six steps towards protecting the critical infrastructures, especially the cyber systems; implementing application whitelisting, reducing attack surface area, building defendable environment, managing authentication, implementing secure remote access, and monitoring and responding effectively.
However, because of constant acts of terrorism and improvement in the same, it is important to consider reducing the vulnerability levels. After identifying the most important and critical infrastructures in the country it is the responsibility of the department of homeland security to initiate programs to reduce the vulnerability of the structures. According to the Department of Homeland security, there are five most important steps towards reducing the vulnerability of the critical infrastructures in the United States. First, it is important for the Department of Homeland security (DHS) to first identify the critical assets. This, however, will depend on the mission of operation. Secondly, the institution identifies any forms of vulnerability before assessing it. This could be within the infrastructure itself or the whole infrastructure. Thirdly, regulating and assessing the possible risks is paramount. This is done to ensure that security is sure of the risks possible to be able to regulate it effectively. Fourthly, it is important to execute the possibly designed programs and strategies that have been identified reduce any possible damages and destruction. Finally, determining the functionality of the measures put in place for defensive purposes is important to ensure the effectiveness of the process towards reducing the vulnerability of the critical infrastructures ( Pyszczynski et al. 2003) .
In summary, it is clear that terrorism has caused devastation to the United States and the world in general, especially with the introduction of the suicide form of terrorism. The United States is an example of the effect of the suicide kind of terrorism. On September 11, 2001, the country had been attacked four times killing about 3000 Americans. However, the important point to note was that the most important and critical infrastructures were targeted. These structures were among the contributors to the economy, security, and welfare of the nation. As such Department of Homeland security was formed to help in the protection of these critical infrastructures from acts of terrorism back then, now, and in the future. Critical infrastructures determine the running of nation irrespective of the location. It is therefore important that the Department of Homeland Security identify and list these structures in order to be able to protect them. Because of the improvement in forms of terrorism, sometimes it is important to reduce the risk of these infrastructures being attacked and destroyed by terrorists. It is therefore important the DHS designs and continues updating methods of reducing those vulnerabilities.
References
Brown, G., Carlyle, M., Salmerón, J., & Wood, K. (2006). Defending critical infrastructure. Interfaces , 36 (6), 530-544.
Critical Infrastructure Threats and Terrorism (2006). DCSINT Handbook No. 1.02. Retrieved
from: http://fas.org/irp/threat/terrorism/sup2.pdf
Kamien, D. (Ed.). (2012). The McGraw-Hill homeland security handbook: Strategic guidance for a coordinated approach to effective security and emergency management (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2003). In the wake of 9/11: Rising above the terror . American Psychological Association.
