The darker side of the bright dawn

Editor’s note: Bob Kolasky is senior vice president of critical infrastructure at Exiger, a provider of supply chain and third-party risk analytics for the U.S. government and critical infrastructure industries. He is also a senior fellow at the McCrary Institute for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security at Auburn University. Previously, he led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) National Risk Management Center. The opinions expressed in this comment are his own. see more opinion on CNN.

Attention turned to the sky last weekend when we witnessed the visual manifestation the scale and epic nature of the space. The scope of the Northern Lights display, visible over a much wider area than usual, captured the imagination of millions of citizens around the world and flooded social media with posts revealing the beauty of the aurora.

However, the first severe geomagnetic storm warning issued over nearly two decades also caught the attention of a large number of homeland security, emergency management and business continuity professionals who wondered if this “extreme” solar storm was “a big” in terms of consequential and potentially crippling space weather events.

For more than a decade, security professionals in U.S. government administrations and the emergency management and critical infrastructure sectors have increasingly focused on the risk of geomagnetic storms—or, as many Americans have recently become familiar with the term , space weather.

Stimulated by energy ejected from the sun, a geomagnetic storm disrupts the Earth’s magnetic field, which can result in currents that can disrupt or damage systems. A strong storm can interrupt energy and water service, land flights, paralyze public transport systems and close gas stations.

A concerted effort has been undertaken in recent years to strengthen electricity, telecommunications, transportation, and space infrastructures against the threat of space weather-induced impacts that could cause long-term service degradation around critical functions.

This preparation, along with how this specific geomagnetic “superstorm” occurred, appears to have contributed to minimal impacts felt on the country’s critical infrastructure over the weekend, although the storm reportedly maintained power grid operators “busy” maintaining “adequate and regulated current”. Other impact reports included global positioning systems (GPS) changes felt in the agricultural sector and “degraded radio communications of aviation and maritime operators.”

The country’s resilience efforts are applauded, including power system operators who prepare for adverse events and respond quickly if they occur. But although circumstances have fortunately harmonized this time, we need to be aware that how serious these impacts can 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 Infrastructure Security and Resilience (NSM 22) that President Joe Biden signed in late April. This policy reinforced the importance of joint public-private collaboration to strengthen the country’s critical infrastructure in a risk-based manner, while using infrastructure investments and regulatory requirements to increase security and resilience.

Among the risks driving the need for NSM 22 are those represented by geomagnetic events, in which bursts of energy from the sun produce currents that can significantly impact critical infrastructure systems. Political decision-makers are particularly worried with the call cascading impacts that space weather could cause.

Damage to a satellite systemfor example, it degrades real-time navigation capability, which could then have a disproportionate impact on transportation systems (particularly aviation). Or the pulsating impact of a geomagnetic storm could cause components of the power grid’s central infrastructure to become overloaded, shutting down parts of the overall grid in a way that is difficult to recover from and causing long-term energy impacts that affect the functioning of water systems and hospitals.

Both scenarios are realistic, although considered rare, and are therefore often referred to as “low probability, high consequence” events. Resilience planning requires that such events with little historical precedent but potentially devastating impacts are considered.

Space weather has been one such event, and building resilience to potentially extreme impacts has been an ongoing priority for the federal Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) Task Force, which was created in 2014 by the National Council of Science and Technology. .

From 2017 to 2022, I co-chaired this group, with a mandate to develop and implement O National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan guide coordinated efforts between government, the research community, and infrastructure owners and operators. These implementation efforts, which emphasized protecting critical infrastructure and sharing information, were certainly helpful in preparing for the space weather events we saw last weekend.

Among the focus areas of SWORM planning efforts have been the need to link space weather science to infrastructure risk mitigation efforts, the need to improve space weather forecasting capabilities, and the importance of international collaboration in the field of space weather.

Preparedness efforts have been recognized as critical in helping to mitigate the effects, improving our ability to respond and recover. These activities were useful before the recent storm, as the storm forecast was widely publicized to emergency managers and continuity professionals, many of whom depended on him to plan and improve preparedness.

While this solar storm brought more of a light show than widespread consequences for critical systems, this should not be an excuse for complacency. The reality of low-probability, high-consequence events is that there is always great uncertainty surrounding them, and the next significant geomagnetic storm could have much greater consequences. Providers of critical functions must remain vigilant.

And although the Sun’s activity caused last weekend’s events, there is also the possibility that a future incident could be man-made and caused by a weapon. electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which can result from nuclear detonations at high altitudes. There were growing concerns about the EMP earlier this year when intelligence information about Russian President Vladimir Putin was released. using tactical nuclear weapons in space. How seriously to take the risk of PEM events has been a question active political debate for more than 20 years.

However, there are bipartisan consensus that building resilience against man-made EMP events and naturally occurring geomagnetic events are related, and there is a degree to which mitigation efforts are dual-use. This is useful given the hybrid risk world we live in. Dual-use mitigation efforts must remain a priority for resilience.

Among the initiatives that should continue are those aimed at improving the science of the terrestrial impacts of geomagnetic activity (including Potentially permanent damage to pipelines) and efforts to translate science into stronger infrastructure design – including in the electrical grid and operational technology that drives communications and transportation efforts.

Financial incentives must be created to invest in resilience by design to help protect communities against the impacts of space weather. We can also learn from this solar storm and improve public risk communications with a broader set of entities that administer our services. critical infrastructure — including power, communications, and emergency services — that do not necessarily have continuity programs tied to NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center or the ability to rely on formal member-driven information sharing channels, such as Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs).

The government should also consider formal designation space infrastructure as a critical infrastructure sector, which would draw greater attention to the resilience of satellite systems —both in space and on land— and would represent an opportunity to strengthen public-private working relationships with key space service providers. Biden did not do so in NSM 22, but left the door open for this to change in the future, as the president requested recommendations from the agency on crafting better infrastructure protection. The risks posed by space weather events are a compelling reason to make this designation.

The dazzling aurora should remind us of the Sun’s power to potentially wreak havoc on the critical systems we need. Our focus on building resilience to natural and man-made space activities must continue.

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