Mappatura e analisi dei processi di information sharing tra operatori di infrastrutture critiche lombarde in scenari di crisi

This thesis project deals with the assessment of the operational data exchange practices among operators of Critical Infrastructures, those systems that provide modern societies with vital services, crucial for the safety and well-being of citizens and for the continuity of economical activities as well. Interconnected societies are continuously exposed to a wide range of risks. Infrastructure systems are subject to functional impairments associated with technological failure, natural threats and malicious acts; thus their protection and resilience becomes more and more an important issue for policy makers. In Italy, private and public operators of critical services are already committed with investments and procedures to guarantee safety and service recovery. Under this point of view, when homeland security and defense are concerned, actions and responsibilities are established at a national level. Nevertheless, the Lombardy Region Administration is aware that thanks to better information sharing processes among actors – concerning threats, vulnerabilities and crisis management – it would be possible to enhance the efficacy of invested resources and the safety of citizens as well. Thus, the Lombardy Region Administration is acting to promote extended and improved collaborative processes among actors (public and private), able to support operators of CIs in preventing and manage service disruptions deriving from events that by nature develop beyond the boundaries of a single infrastructure or require the joint intervention of more than one organization. Starting from this subsidiary approach the Lombardy Region Administration launched in 2009 an institutional programme dealing with the definition and evaluation of an integrated system to set up inter organizational collaborations within prevention, monitoring and emergency management processes for regional CIs. In line with the contents of the Directive 114/EC/2008, the action has been focused on Energy and Transport infrastructures. The objectives of PReSIC (Programma Regionale per la Sicurezza delle Infrastrutture Critiche) are: • the identification of a set of well-defined and agreed decision making processes and the related governance model; • the definition of procedures and protocols for information sharing and operational coordination; • the definition of the main requirements for a technological platform to support collaborative operations (a new infrastructure) with high information security standards. To meet these objectives a memorandum of understanding has been signed by the Region and a set of the major CI regional operators and a number of Technical-Thematic roundtables (TTT) has been opened: • a first TTT studies the information sharing among IC operators when certain events occur: how the players exchange operational data now, and how they would like to exchange them in the future; • a second TTT concerns a large-scale weather scenario: it is focused on the identification of the most effective coordinated actions engaged till now, and the possible future improvements. Other TTT will be created in the future. This thesis project focuses on the first TTT. Here are explained the analyses made and the results obtained. The project prepares IC operators to better face any critical evens in the near future, improving the efficiency of information sharing processes among them. By implementing some specific tools of NAF3 (NATO Architectural Framework v.3), a framework for the design and specification of Network Enabled Operations (NEO), a complete inventory and characterization of information sharing processes and channels has been carried out. The analysis highlighted the will of the operators to increase information exchanges in the future, not necessarily for collaborative purposes, but above all for informational purposes and a better situational awareness. Moreover, the CIs operators continue to rely on technologically obsolete communication channels. The final outcome of this TTT is an online Database available for consultation from the actors involved. The Database allows to know how IC operators currently share information among themselves, providing a complete and integrated view of operational data exchanges during different crisis response phases (pre-alarm, alarm and emergency) and facing different event types (meteorological, technological, interdependency related, ...).