Personnel threats in the electric power critical infrastructure sector and their effect on dependent sectors: Overview in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The Electric Power Infrastructure Sector is a uniquely critical sector among other critical infrastructures. Disruptions to or failures of its functions would result in extensive effects, not only on society itself but also on all of the (other) dependent critical infrastructure sectors. The key areas of electric power supply systems that demonstrate the greatest vulnerability to terrorist attacks include the following areas of vulnerability: physical vulnerability, cyber vulnerability and personnel vulnerability. Considerable attention is devoted to the problems and issues of external anthropogenic threats (e.g. terrorism). Internal intentional anthropogenic threats represent an almost neglected sector in the field of security research. Based on this fact, this article studies the issues of threats to and by personnel in the electric power critical infrastructure sector and their influence and effect on dependent critical infrastructure sectors. Attention is especially given to defining these threats and their (further) categorization into two groups: physical and cyber threats. Equally, this article also highlights the impacts of personnel threats in dependent critical infrastructure sectors. The main part of this paper focuses on security measures that can be used to minimize the potential impact of personnel threats. This especially concerns (1) assessing the resilience of elements in the electric power critical infrastructure sector to personnel threats, (2) defining the requirements for personnel security, and (3) the use of standard technical and innovative technologies to monitor and assess the activities of authorized or non-authorized persons. © 2020 The Author(s)