Lack of Cybersecurity in the United States’ Critical Infrastructure

Technology has revolutionized the nature of information, remote control, and communication itself, but it has also brought with it tangible dangers. Top minds in the United States, as well as the rest of the world, have seen those dangers and dedicated their work to mitigate them, developing the ideas and policies necessary to protect the nation from those dangers, and yet the actual implementation of safety measures within the nation lags behind. In the meantime, as U.S. critical infrastructure remains woefully unprotected, the nation opens itself up to a plethora of cyber-attacks. These attacks can cause damage in many ways. There are the obvious, tangible effects like costing trillions of dollars [1], poisoning water supplies to cause illness [2], or causing power outages [3], but we must also consider more subtle, social damages caused as well, such as losing trust, questioning the legitimacy of polling machines, or losing a sense of security in general. Regardless of the damage caused, it is clear that these attacks cannot be allowed to continue, and the United States already has a number of policies and strategies in place to defend itself and its critical infrastructure. However, despite being theoretically applicable and effective, the nation routinely sees them go unimplemented even as preventable attacks repeatedly succeed. What is it about the current U.S. policy that leaves it so vulnerable, and how can it be remedied? This brief addresses the question and offers a recommendation