Critical Infrastructure Protection Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

Critical Infrastructure Protection Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

The Critical Infrastructure Protection Market is expected to register a CAGR of 7.76% during the forecast period. COVID-19 highlighted the importance of numerous infrastructure systems and services in maintaining economic and social activity and enabling responses to unexpected threats and difficulties while posing a vulnerability risk. However, not all infrastructure consequences have been bad; certain services have witnessed a rise in demand or positive benefits, illustrating the diversity and heterogeneity of infrastructure in general and the complexity of knock-on effects from significant shocks.

• Critical infrastructure plays an active and dynamic part in supporting modern society's seamless progression and assimilation. The performance, safety, reliability, continuous operation, maintenance, and protection of critical infrastructure are among the national priorities for countries worldwide. Critical infrastructure (CI) offers essential services that underpin society and serve as the backbone of any nation's economy, health, and security. The power used in homes and industries, potable water, transportation, and communication systems are a part of critical infrastructure.
• The critical infrastructure sectors comprise assets, networks, and systems, whether physical or virtual. The physical protection of critical infrastructure can prevent the commission of high-impact terrorist attacks and avoid the cascading effects that are frequently associated with such attacks. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 649 complaints of ransomware attacks targeting critical infrastructure firms in 2021, according to the FBI.
• Further, defense bases and facilities are widely supported by various critical infrastructure and operational technology, from power generation and utilities to building automation and safety systems. Destruction or incapacitation of these bases can have a debilitating effect on national economic security, safety, or any combination thereof, such as loss of power, exposure of confidential information, interruptions to operations, and threats to the safety of personnel.
• Therefore, the issue of critical infrastructure protection is emerging as one of the primary concerns for national governments, infrastructure managers, and local authorities. The European Union (EU), through its European Program for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP), announced the importance of CIP to all its member states and their citizens. In the EU, the importance of the free flow of people and goods and services required for maintaining trans-European transport networks, such as TEN-T, is a priority.
• Moreover, for the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems, the nature of the operation and communication exposes them to numerous threats, which might be caused by hardware or software errors, human mistakes, or deliberate, malicious actions. Combating such threat risks, which can jeopardize the security of control systems and their critical infrastructure, requires protection strategies to be carefully designed and appropriately implemented.
• The Critical Infrastructure Defense Project was established in March 2022 to shield the United States from retaliatory Russian cyberattacks. The Critical Infrastructure Defense Project, an endeavor to "rapidly increase cyber readiness" for hospitals, energy corporations, and water utility firms in the United States, was established in partnership with three industry giants in the fields of cloud security and identity authentication. For a few months, Cloudflare, Crowdstrike, and Ping Identity have combined their resources to offer various complimentary products and services in response to mounting concerns about retaliatory cyberattacks following sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.

• The government's increasing focus on renewable energy is expected to boost the adoption of critical infrastructure over the forecast period. For instance, the U.S. military plans to produce 25% of energy from renewable sources, as only 27 of more than 400 domestic military sites have fortified the P.V. microgrids. This factor made the majority vulnerable to long-term power disruptions.
• The Critical Infrastructure Protection Plan (NERC CIP) is a set of security standards developed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation to help electrical energy supply and delivery systems defend themselves against physical and electronic threats. It is worth mentioning that the petroleum and natural gas industries have comparable safeguards.
• Personnel training, physical security, and supply chain risk management are among the topics covered by the CIP standards. However, most CIP standards focus on certain aspects of cybersecurity to protect bulk electric systems (BES) from attack. For instance, CIP-005-6 deals with electronic security perimeters and access control to BES cyber systems.
• According to Ember, the share of energy from renewable sources used in global energy generation has been rising annually since 2007 and has almost doubled in 2021 at 28 percent. This indicates further the implementation of critical infrastructure protection in the energy & power sector, which has been rising for power generation from renewable sources, which will drive the market in the future.
• In February 2021, cold weather disrupted power supplies in Texas. A ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline Company in May 2021 disrupted fuel supplies along the East Coast, sparking congressional concerns about the CISR effort and its voluntary public-private partnership model. The Department of Energy (DOE), in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), leads public-private partnerships in the energy industry, particularly the oil and gas subsector, for risk management and supply assurance. Pipeline safety and security are overseen by the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), a DHS agency.
• Further, in May 2022, Armis announced the Critical Infrastructure Protection Program (CIPP) to help organizations supplying systemically essential entities such as energy, water, marine ports, and wastewater pinpoint and fortify assets needing urgent security improvements. Under this new program, critical infrastructure providers in the U.S. and NATO-aligned countries will have complimentary access to Armis for three months.

• The United States is expected to be a prominent market, owing to the growing adoption of CIP solutions and services across different end-user verticals in the country. The country has a strong foothold on vendors, positively contributing to the market's growth. Some of them include Honeywell International Inc., Raytheon Co., General Electric Co., General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Northrop Grumman Corporation, among others.
• The National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) was revised to identify 16 critical sectors susceptible to attacks across the country. It includes well-established global computer and telecommunication networks, financial systems, electrical grids, power plants, gas and distribution pipelines, oil refineries, chemical manufacturing plants, water treatment systems, and military communications, which rely on the 24/7 link of the interdependent network of information systems.
• In the United States, most of the critical infrastructure, including oil and gas, electric power grids, defense, health care, banking and finance, and education, is owned by the private sector (about 85%, according to DHS), and the public sector is regulating it.
• Public and private relationships in critical infrastructure operations require a strong working partnership. Further, power grid and energy security require private-public cooperation and regulatory coordination among industries, DHS, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Energy (DOE). The power grid and other industrial infrastructure have been increasingly subjected to physical and cyber-attacks in the country.
• Further, the market requires robust cloud intrusion protection and security solutions to safeguard critical data and suitable network security solutions. The recent email leaks and DNC hacks witnessed by the nation during the election period are expected to push organizations to reinforce data security. The US state, federal, and local government agencies ranked highest in cybersecurity over 17 private industry sectors, such as transportation, retail, and healthcare. However, the government expects to tighten the security norms to provide better cloud security in the near future.

The Critical Infrastructure Protection Market is highly competitive, owing to the presence of many small and large players in the market operating their business in domestic and international markets. With the advent of infrastructure attacks, many vendors respond to the rising threat by offering critical information security solutions. These offerings have led to new services, technologies, and partnerships with leading essential providers of infrastructure.

In May 2022, Parsons Corporation announced the acquisition of Xator Corporation for USD 400 million. Xator increases Parsons' addressable market in both the federal solutions and critical infrastructure segments by growing its customer base, bringing differentiated technical capabilities in critical infrastructure protection, counter-unmanned aircraft systems (cUAS), intelligence and cyber solutions, biometrics, and global threat assessment and operations.

In April 2022, The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced USD 12 million in funding for six new research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects aimed at developing innovative cybersecurity technology to ensure energy delivery systems are designed, installed, operated, and maintained in a way that allows them to survive and recover quickly from cyberattacks.

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