Solution

• Fundamentally, the rational for attacking the critical infrastructure centers on three major points.

• First is the impact on the national security of the United States by reducing our ability to defend ourselves by limiting the decision space our military maintains in our cyberspace.

• Second, the economic strength of the United States could be compro- mised and fundamentally impacted by attacking only 3 of our 16 critical infrastructures. Our electrical grid system creates interdependencies among all 15 remaining critical infrastructures. The economic cost to our nation as a result of a successful attack on this infrastructure would be devastating.

• Equally costly to our economy would be successful cyberspace attacks on our transportation and telecommunications infrastructures. Each of these infrastructures also would impact other infrastructures as a result of the nature of interdependencies throughout our nation.

• Finally, a successful attack on our infrastructure system would erode public confidence in our nation’s ability to maintain both our national secu- rity and our economic strength.

• It is for these reasons that three U.S. presi- dents have directly addressed this potential problem and have issued EOs to organize our nation to defend against the possible attack either physically or in a cyberspace manner.