Financial and Transportation Sectors
Finance
The Financial and Transportation CIs are two of the most significant to the American economy, and they each carry interdependency with other nations around the world. What makes the Financial and Transportation Cis so unique are their various methods of modalities that have a significant impact on American life. The Financial CI possesses various physical and digital components that makeup the CI’s ability to provide products and services to people on a national and international basis. These include physical banking locations in which customers can make deposits or withdrawals, make special purchases like money orders and corporate checks, as well as get access to capital like loans or check credit reports for information on their financial standing. The Financial CI gives customers the ability to access these resources at a physical banking location or through digital properties likes websites and mobile apps. This remains significant as it gives customers the ability to check balances, transfer currencies domestically and internationally, as well as gain confidence in the overall financial sector.
Transportation
Similarly, there are many modalities to the transportation CI: airway, rail, maritime, pipelines and other methods of transportation. Transportation also relies heavily on wireless communications and GPS, both of which are vulnerabilities due to the fact that they can be intercepted. Like other critical infrastructures, both are also susceptible to human error. The requirements of both CIs to protect physical and digital infrastructures makes them carry significant vulnerabilities. Both CIs depend heavily on SCADA controls; if SCADA controls are compromised then it may prevent customers from having access to appropriate amount of financial resources or transportation resources they need. Both Cis are significant targets for other nations during instances of cyberwar, as it would be ideal for an adversary to cause mass hysteria within the United States by taking down the financial system or bring down interdependent systems through like transportation.
Policies
Even though many of these CIs are privately owned, the government does enact some policies and regulations in order to manage them. For example, the banking sector being bailed out under President Obama has led to more oversight on the CI in its history. Transportation, on the other hand partners with the TSA, U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Transportation for developing its policies and regulations. Transportation CI also collaborates with USTRANSCOM for the monitoring and enforcing of transportation policies within the United States and abroad. In order to increase the security of both CIs, I would suggest for the United States Congress to continue to develop ideas that can introduce oversight regulations into the Financial sector in order to provide further protection to its CIs. For Transportation, I would recommend the creation of a new Federal division in much the same way as the Federal government created the Department of Homeland Security to address domestic, defensive cybersecurity operations. I would recommend dividing USTRANSCOM into two separate divisions, one that handles defensive or domestic transportation, and the other that handles offensive or international transportation to make it clearer who should respond to instances of cyberattack to the Transportation CI.