On the Importance of Protecting Critical Infrastructure related Engineering Descriptor Information (CIEDI)

The international security situation has lead to increased concern regarding malicious attacks against critical infrastructure (CI). CI encompasses a number of essential services some of which are water, electricity, and gas supply. For all such service-based assets there exists engineering information that includes architectural blueprints, structural composition data, and layout schema of key facilities. Such information exists within electronic systems and on paper as well. This paper argues that CIEDI must be recognized as part of the overall national CI as access to such information may assist attack on the CI itself. This paper proposes a definition of CIEDI and suggest CIEDI be addressed as part of the overall organizational security lifecycle with emphasis on maintaining uniform standards across physical and cyber media.