The outbreak of the Covid-19 virus in China and the railway disruptions across Canada represent two different yet similar classic case studies. They remind us that nations and global economies are becoming increasingly interconnected. Incidents thousands of kilometers away are being felt locally. This is a result of the increasing importance of critical infrastructure (CI).

In order to mitigate these negative consequences to organizations—like lost revenue, lost customers and reputational damage—they must have well-structured and defined contingency plans in place to meet operational objectives.

What’s known as critical infrastructure has many different definitions within academic literature and among different governments worldwide. But essentially, CI can be defined as infrastructure so vital that its incapacity or destruction would have a debilitating impact on the economy or the defense of the country and therefore becomes a national security issue.

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