Week 02: Risk and Resilience

Question 1

What are 4 factors for increased risk to CI?

Answer 1

1. Increasing demands
2. Aging Infrastructure
3. Interconnected and Interdependent Nature
4. Increasing attractiveness of CI as a target.

Question 2

Who defines Resilience as:
“… the capacity of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to adapt to disturbances resulting from hazards by persevering, recuperating or changing to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning.”

Answer 2

Emergency Management Framework for Canada

Question 3

What are the Core Elements of Resilience? (4)

Answer 3

1. Robustness
2. Redundancy
3. Resourcefulness
4. Rapidity

Question 4

“… the inherent strength or resistance in a system to withstand external demands without degradation or loss of functionality.” What is this the definition of?

a. Robustness
b. Redundancy
c. Resourcefulness
d. Rapidity

Answer 4

a. Robustness

Question 5

“System properties that allow for alternate options, choices, and substitutions under stress.” What is this the definition of?

a. Robustness
b. Redundancy
c. Resourcefulness
d. Rapidity

Answer 5

b. Redundancy

Question 6

“The capacity to mobilize needed resources and services in an emergency” What is this the definition of?

a. Robustness
b. Redundancy
c. Resourcefulness
d. Rapidity

Answer 6

c. Resourcefulness

Question 7

“The speed with which disruption can be overcome and safety, services, and financial stability restored.” What is this the definition of?

a. Robustness
b. Redundancy
c. Resourcefulness
d. Rapidity

Answer 7

d. Rapidity

Question 8

Other conditions for resiliency in CI include what capacities/considerations? (3)

Answer 8

1. Absorptive capacity
2. Adaptive capacity
3. Restorative capacity

Question 9

What are the four dimensions of resilience?

Answer 9

1. Technical
2. Organizational
3. Social
4. Economic

Question 10

What is the technical dimension of resilience? (4)

Answer 10

1. Physical properties of infrastructure
2. Components, systems, networks
3. How these behave with regard to CI Impacts
4. Important for engineering resilience

Question 11

What is the organizational dimension of resilience? (3)

Answer 11

1. The organizations and institutions that manage the physical components of the system
2. CI owners/operators
3. How does/do the culture, people, risk management, respond to threats/disruption at the organizational level

Question 12

What is the social dimension of resilience? (2)

Answer 12

1. Population and community characteristics that make the population more or less vulnerable to impacts
2. CI is central to the functioning of society

Question 13

What is the economic dimension of resilience? (3)

Answer 13

1. Potentially high costs of protection
2. Protective measures alone may not be enough
3. Resilience more broadly then becomes necessary

Question 14

What is the National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure’s three keys to resilience?

Answer 14

1. Build partnerships to support and enhance CI resiliency
2. Implement all-hazards risk management approach
3. Advance the timely sharing and protection of information among partners and key stakeholder

Question 15

What are the three overall CI resiliency objectives?

Answer 15

1. Minimize damage to CI during the event
2. Maintain operational integrity and critical services immediately following the event
3. Return to normal, safe operating conditions as soon as possible

Question 16

Why would dependencies and interdependencies matter in CI? (3)

Answer 16

1. Protection and resiliency demand an understanding of dependency
2. The relationships are often complex, and non-obvious
3. The interconnected nature of CI can and has led to cascading failures (including cross-sectoral and transnational).

Question 17

Dependency leads to a more accurate assessment of criticality of what two things?

Answer 17

1. Of a component
2. Of a whole sector

Question 18

“A bidirectional relationship between two infrastructures through which the state of each infrastructure influences or is correlated to the state of the other.”

Is this the definition of interdependency or dependency?

Answer 18

Interdependency

Question 19

“A linkage or connection between two infrastructures through which the state of one infrastructure influences or is correlated to the state of the other.”

Is this the definition of interdependency or dependency?

Answer 19

Dependency

Question 20

What are the four classifications of Interdependency and Dependency?

Answer 20

1. Physical interdependency
2. Cyber (inter)dependency
3. Geographical (inter)dependency
4. Logical (inter)dependency

Question 21

True or False:

“The more dependencies, the more critical…, the more vulnerable, the more critical…, and the lack of alternatives increases its criticality.”

Answer 21

TRUE

Question 22

What are three types of dependence-related disruptions?

Answer 22

1. Cascading
2. Escalating
3. Common-cause

Question 23

What is the difference between cascade initiating and cascade resulting failures?

Answer 23

Initiating is an event that causes another event in another CI, while resulting is an event that results from an event in another CI.

Question 24

Which two sectors are the main cascading initiating sectors?

Answer 24

Energy and Telecommunications

Question 25

What are the the four CI operating states?

Answer 25

1. Normal 2. Stressed 3. Crisis 4. Recovery