Nation's critical infrastructures: Inherent vulnerabilities and economic fall backs of their unavailability

摘要

This paper aims to provide an operative method for identifying particular systems and assets 'at risk', analysing their specific characteristics in terms of vulnerability and mutual dependency relations. The threat which a technological infrastructure is exposed to and the possible direct and indirect effects on the potential receivers has to be the starting point for an identification analysis of infrastructure's criticality. The second part of the paper concerns the presentation of the possible economic effects arising from the unavailability of systems. In this respect, for making a choice regarding investments aimed to protect "critical infrastructures", it is necessary to refer to economic analysis instruments and methods. The main result of the work is represented by an operational methodology aimed at the definition of the specificities, which make essential a national technological infrastructure, considering the effects and technical-economic falls back derived from the weak nonoperational elements-or subsystems—which constitute it.