Characterisation of Methods of Protecting the State’s Critical Infrastructure From Terrorist Activities

The study describes methods for protecting the critical infrastructure of a state. The article aims to determine the combination of protecting methods of the state’s critical infrastructure from terrorist activities, namely security, physical protection, protection of critical infrastructure, protection of critical information infrastructure, and prevention of emergencies of a terrorist nature at objects of critical infrastructure. It is necessary to fulfil the following objectives to achieve the aim: to consider the difference and interrelation of the concepts of critical infrastructure and information critical infrastructure; to characterise the general properties of various terms, in particular: security, physical protection, protection of critical infrastructure, protection of information critical infrastructure, prevention of terrorist emergencies at objects of critical infrastructure; to analyse from the scientific point of view the classical definitions of forms and methods of critical infrastructure protection; to propose a generalised structure of information and technical methods of critical infrastructure protection; to determine the possibility of using information and technical methods in various fields of knowledge to protect the state’s critical infrastructure from terrorist influence. In summary, the structure of information and technical methods for critical infrastructure protection consists of three components: a mathematical model that describes the process occurring at critical infrastructure, a control algorithm that implements the mathematical model, and procedures that indicate the order of actions for applying the method. The problem of protecting critical infrastructure from terrorist activities requires technical, legal, military, psychological, medical, chemical, biological, and other sciences to address it. Each type of science will use its specific methods to solve practical problems of preventing terrorist emergencies at critical infrastructure. For technical sciences, there will be information-technical, engineering-technical, operational-technical, organisational-technical, biotechnical, and other methods to prevent emergencies of a terroristic nature that need development shortly. Keywords: critical information infrastructure, protection, terror, security, terrorist emergency.