Framing vulnerability analysis of critical infrastructure regarding information security

This paper focuses on data collection within a procedural framework of vulnerability analysis for information security of Critical Infrastructures (CIs). The incidents occurred in CIs, which are owned and operated mostly by private companies, considering business continuity and reputation, are seldom open to public. Therefore, data collection becomes one of the key challenges in the case of scientific analyses. In addition, a close cooperation with the private companies is necessary in order to make a thorough investigation and fruitful analysis and create a win-win situation. Practical applications are presented, where holding workshops and organizing face-to-face interviews are mainly used for collecting primary information. Results of a workshop are summarized. Two case studies adopting the method of personal interviews are presented: One is regarding the cooperation with the Swiss research and educational network (SWITCH); The other is the cooperation with Switzerland’s national grid company. The procedure of building cooperations and good practices are concluded