If you have not seen or heard of it before, see the Department of Homeland Security's Stop.Think.Connect campaign to educate people and organizations about the threat of hackers penetrating your cyberworld.
Some emergency managers might think that this is not core to what we do and our disaster preparedness messaging. I disagree with that line of thinking. As more and more of our world becomes digital, there won't be a part that is separate and isolated from our core functions. Not only do we need to protect our personal data and systems, we live in an interconnected world and employees might bring a virus or "back door" program into the workplace. If that workplace is one that includes critical infrastructures, then we might really have a problem.
Just yesterday I ended up playing golf with an employee of a large electrical power company here in the Pacific Northwest. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) are a major part of what he does. SCADA controls are what makes our electric grid vulnerable to intrusions. More and more industrial systems are being controlled by digital systems that allow operators to monitor and control our critical infrastructures from central locations. With these technological advances we also have risks that must be accounted for.
