Page 111 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

2 Cyberterrorism Threats to Critical

Infrastructure: Coordination and
Cooperation from Brussels to South-

Eastern Europe and back

Robert Mikac, Krešimir Mamić, Iva Žutić

1 Introduction

Physical and virtual infrastructure makes it possible to maintain the current level of develop-
ment of individuals, society, organizations and states, as well as their progress. It includes
static elements such as bridges, tunnels and pipelines; dynamic elements such as numerous
transport platforms like rail, air and road vehicles; and virtual ones such as the internet, digital
services and their content. These and numerous other examples of infrastructure – besides
ensuring that development, investment and quality of life make environments that have a
better combination of individual and collective solutions more competitive than others – are
characterized by openness, accessibility and mass use. Infrastructure is expected to be reli-
able, long-lasting, cost-effective and continuously progressing, for a modern way of life and
constant acceleration in all social and economic processes.

Infrastructure as a term and concept concerning its essential function – to be a medium for
the production, transmission and exchange of various products and services – is viewed from
three fundamental perspectives. Firstly, we look at it as a series of objects, networks and sys-
tems that have a specific and predetermined function (social, economic, security); secondly, as
providing services to numerous individual users; and thirdly, noting that all infrastructure uses
IT support for its functioning. The emphasis in the first case is on the mechanical parts of the
infrastructure, in the second on the possibilities it provides, and in the third on its dependence
on its IT component. The interactivity of these perspectives is beyond question, and for the
sake of completeness of understanding and analysis, they should be considered together as
much as possible.

It is important to emphasize that not all infrastructure is critical, nor is all critical infrastruc-
ture equally valuable. For the operational definition of critical infrastructure in this paper, we
take a sufficiently broad definition from the European Commission: “Critical infrastructures
consist of those physical and information technology facilities, networks, services and assets

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