Editor’s Note: Bob Kolasky is the senior vice president for critical infrastructure at Exiger, a provider of analysis of supply chain and third-party risk for the US government and critical infrastructure industries. He also is a senior fellow at Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Infrastructure Security. He previously led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) National Risk Management Center. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.Attention turned to the sky last weekend as we witnessed the visual manifestation of the sheer scale and epic nature of space. The reach of the northern lights display, visible over a much wider area than usual, captured the imagination of millions of citizens worldwide and flooded social media with posts reveling in the beauty of the aurora. Bob Kolasky – Department of Homeland SecurityHowever, the first severe geomagnetic storm watch issued in nearly two decades also seized the attention of a large swath of homeland security, emergency management and business continuity professionals who wondered whether this “extreme” solar storm was the “big one” in terms of consequential and potentially crippling space weather events.For more than a decade, security professionals across US government administrations and in emergency management and critical infrastructure industries have increasingly focused on the risk of geomagnetic storms — or, in the term many Americans have become newly acquainted with, space weather.Spurred by energy ejected from the sun, a geomagnetic storm disturbs Earth’s magnetic field, which can result in currents that may disrupt or harm systems. A severe storm could knock out power and water service, ground flights, bring public transportation systems to a halt and close gas stations.A focused effort has been undertaken in recent years to strengthen electricity, telecommunications, transportation and space infrastructure against the threat of space weather-induced impacts that could cause long-term degradation of service around critical functions.That preparation, along with how this particular geomagnetic “superstorm” played out, seems to have contributed to minimal impacts being felt across the nation’s critical infrastructure over the weekend, though the storm reportedly kept power grid operators “busy” maintaining “proper, regulated current.” Other reports of impacts included global positioning systems (GPS) changes felt in the agriculture sector and “degraded radio communications from aviation and marine operators.”Plaudits are in order for the nation’s resilience efforts, including power system operators who prepare for adverse events and respond quickly if they happen. But while circumstances fortunately fell in line this time, we need to be cognizant of how serious these impacts could be next time and prepare for a more severe space weather event with potentially devastating consequences.This affirms the need for the new National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastr …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnEditor’s Note: Bob Kolasky is the senior vice president for critical infrastructure at Exiger, a provider of analysis of supply chain and third-party risk for the US government and critical infrastructure industries. He also is a senior fellow at Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Infrastructure Security. He previously led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) National Risk Management Center. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.Attention turned to the sky last weekend as we witnessed the visual manifestation of the sheer scale and epic nature of space. The reach of the northern lights display, visible over a much wider area than usual, captured the imagination of millions of citizens worldwide and flooded social media with posts reveling in the beauty of the aurora. Bob Kolasky – Department of Homeland SecurityHowever, the first severe geomagnetic storm watch issued in nearly two decades also seized the attention of a large swath of homeland security, emergency management and business continuity professionals who wondered whether this “extreme” solar storm was the “big one” in terms of consequential and potentially crippling space weather events.For more than a decade, security professionals across US government administrations and in emergency management and critical infrastructure industries have increasingly focused on the risk of geomagnetic storms — or, in the term many Americans have become newly acquainted with, space weather.Spurred by energy ejected from the sun, a geomagnetic storm disturbs Earth’s magnetic field, which can result in currents that may disrupt or harm systems. A severe storm could knock out power and water service, ground flights, bring public transportation systems to a halt and close gas stations.A focused effort has been undertaken in recent years to strengthen electricity, telecommunications, transportation and space infrastructure against the threat of space weather-induced impacts that could cause long-term degradation of service around critical functions.That preparation, along with how this particular geomagnetic “superstorm” played out, seems to have contributed to minimal impacts being felt across the nation’s critical infrastructure over the weekend, though the storm reportedly kept power grid operators “busy” maintaining “proper, regulated current.” Other reports of impacts included global positioning systems (GPS) changes felt in the agriculture sector and “degraded radio communications from aviation and marine operators.”Plaudits are in order for the nation’s resilience efforts, including power system operators who prepare for adverse events and respond quickly if they happen. But while circumstances fortunately fell in line this time, we need to be cognizant of how serious these impacts could be next time and prepare for a more severe space weather event with potentially devastating consequences.This affirms the need for the new National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastr …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
