Consequence-, time- and interdependency-based risk assessment in the field of critical infrastructure

Prezelj, Iztok (author), Žiberna, Aleš (author)

The disruption of any critical infrastructural sector has the potential to create significant direct consequences and cross-sectoral effects in a short period of time. In this article, we suggest a consequence-, time- and interdependency-based risk assessment approach that seeks to identify which direct consequences and intersectoral effects are likely to emerge in what time frame. We argue that critical infrastructures with the capacity to cause the greatest societal consequences and strongest intersectoral negative effects in the shortest time represent the most risky infrastructures. Such a direct risk assessment was further improved by a network-based risk calculation that takes not only first-order effects into account, but also then-order intersectoral cascading effects. Applying this model to 17 infrastructural subsectors in Slovenia shows that the network transfer of effects among critical infrastructures can considerably and unpredictably change their initially calculated risk. The riskiest subsectors at the maximal level of network effects turned out to be those on which other subsectors heavily directly and indirectly depend: electricity, ICT, road transport and financial instruments. Risk management in the critical infrastructure protection field and related defence in depth should focus its limited resources on those infrastructures with the biggest network-based risk

• Language: English
• Work type: Not categorized
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Year: 2013
• Number of pages: Str. 100-131
• Numbering: Vol. 15, iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-45540
• UDC: 005.931.11
• ISSN on article: 1460-3799
• DOI: 10.1057/rm.2013.1
• COBISS.SI-ID: 32107101
• Publication date in RUL: 10.07.2015

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Risk management
• Shortened title: Risk manag.
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• ISSN: 1460-3799
• COBISS.SI-ID: 514966297