Criminology

Critical infrastructure within a State includes those facilities that are useful to both the public and the private sector. Such facilities include telecommunication systems, banking facilities, water supply facilities, transport networks, electrical power plants, oil and gas stores, hospitals, schools and administration offices. Others which have special consideration include security systems and media house. In case such critical infrastructure rare destroyed there are huge loses that are incurred. In order to avoid such losses security should be beeped up within those facilities. This can be carried out those certain policies and collaboration with the concerned agencies such as the department of security and federal agencies.

The department of homeland security plays certain roles in ensuring the security of critical assets. It ensures coherent and harmonious collaboration between various agencies which involve private sector, federal agencies, local officials, and State officials. These measures are taken to provide enough security on critical infrastructure. There are various contributing factors for beeping up security on critical infrastructure.  National income development is achieved by providing security on critical infrastructure which might be costly to the government upon destruction. It also enables protection of human within this critical infrastructure.

Terrorist have always targeted key assets and critical infrastructure in their ventures to attack authorities or powerful States in the world. They participate in such crimes in their mission of testing the security status in the powerful nations. Cyberspace is the mostly affected critical infrastructure. Terrorist exercise their security to jeopardy the security of a certain State. The highly targeted critical infrastructure by terrorists include telecommunication systems, power grid, finance departments and key national banks amongst others.  The accomplishment of the destruction is usually a successful venture to criminals and terrorists because they first study the set up of the critical assets within a nation. This enables them identify the weak points in terms of security.  This is possible because most developed nations have their agencies and critical infrastructure networked or linked to the internet services.  Unfortunately, the networked systems and critical infrastructure does not have appropriate security strategies which have being laid down to avoid or detect attacks at quick look (Cordesman Anthony, 2002). This is very devastating because attacks are planned missions which occur unexpectedly.

The public sector is not the only one that is affected.  Private sectors are also involved in the menace as terrorists target private sectors which carry essential information and value. This is because the private investor relies most on the infrastructural security. It is the mandate of the government to provide such security. The private sector also has a role to play

There are various strategies which have been laid to counter terrorist attacks. Security provisions are not worse with the Mcfee, Inc technology company in California. It is involved in providing security to curb cyber attacks. This eliminates some of the challenges posed to the cyber space in terms of security threats. It is the mandate of stakeholders to coordinate to eliminate such security threats.
The department of homeland security has preset goals to safeguard security within critical assets.  Some of the critical infrastructure which is highly protected includes information technology, chemical industry, emergency services like the health care, transport systems, shipping services as well as the postal services (Hawkins Kyleen, 2003).The department also plays a role in safeguarding prominent personnel within the government. This is as laid down in the presidential directives of 2003. Priority in these directives is to ensure security and maximum protection to the critical infrastructure (Koldaro Michelle, 2001). According to the presidential directives on the security provision, Bush directed that the DHS form collaborative strategies with the private sector and well known federal agencies in order to provide security on critical infrastructure. It is not a one man affair since terrorists identify any loophole in attacking critical infrastructure.
 
United States has made crucial move since 1996 in establishing a well equipped security towards the protection of critical infrastructure (Geddes Elizabeth, 2003). The department of homeland security has established some buffer zone protection facilities. This has been in place since 2005.The mandates of such facilities are to fight terrorist attacks affecting the chemical industry.  The collaboration of the DHS and the State has yielded good fruit. This has been achieved by organizing workshop training, assistance on technical matters and seminar related to the BZP process of plan development.  A significant move has been made in providing security on critical assets. The completion of the NIPP plans by the DHS is significant as it involves security matters.   The assurance of the National Leaders security as provided by the DHS through the operation of the Domestic Protectees program safeguards their security giving better change to serve the nation without many constraints.  Among the highly protected leaders under the 100 protection plan are the President, vice President, their families and the former presidents families.

In conclusion, there is need for security provision in both private and public critical infrastructure (Anderson Teresa, 2004). Although the State through the department of homeland security has made an attempt to make such protection for leaders, citizen, physical and invisible assets, it is worth noting that there is need for improvement because terrorists can bomb the facilities any time.

Emergency and recovery measures for any loses in case of successful attacks should be set up to protect grounding of critical infrastructure there after.   As mentioned earlier, cyber space attacks are most prevalent since the majority of developed nations have connected their systems to the internet and are therefore threatened with attacks related to the cyberspace due to limited protection.