Tom Daschle, Tom Ridge: Pipeline hack reveals America's vulnerability to biological attack

The effects of the ransomware attack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline and disrupted East Coast gasoline supplies have eased. But as frustrating as that cyberattack was to consumers and business operators, consider this: Much worse things could damage critical infrastructure.

With terrorist groups and ill-meaning nation states like Iran and Syria striving to disrupt our way of life, future attacks are likely to occur in more than one domain. On Thursday, Microsoft warned that the Russian-based group behind last year's SolarWinds hack had launched a new campaign targeting 150 organizations, mostly in the United States.

The prolific hacker group, which Microsoft refers to as Nobelium and is widely believed to be run by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, launched the latest attacks after getting access to an email marketing service used by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, according to Microsoft.

While it is impossible to prepare for all possible scenarios, we should at least prepare for those that already have laid bare our weaknesses.

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The attack on the Colonial Pipeline and the spread of COVID-19 reveal troubling national vulnerabilities. We should prepare for both cyber and biological attacks to occur simultaneously.

A report soon to be released by the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense finds that all critical infrastructure sectors are at biological risk. The consequences of intentional, accidental and natural biological incidents occurring are truly worrisome.

None of our nation’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors (including the health care and public health sector and the food and agriculture sector) has planned adequately for biological incidents.

They have not determined how they will operate in a biologically contaminated environment, identified how they contribute to biodefense, examined the biological threat to their operations, determined how they are vulnerable to biological threats or estimated the consequences of biological incidents harming their sectors.

Critical infrastructure is unprotected

It is no wonder then that all critical infrastructure sectors found themselves unprotected and operationally compromised when COVID-19 spread to the United States and throughout the world.

And if the private sector is looking to the federal government to do something about this, it will experience what we saw during the pandemic: a government that remains woefully underprepared.

All critical infrastructure owners and operators must accept that a biological incident will likely harm their sectors, and then plan and prepare accordingly. Ignoring the danger could well lead to horrendous consequences within each sector and throughout society.

COVID-19 provided a powerful example of how our nation’s food and agriculture sector can easily be upended. Food-processing facilities were hit hard by the pandemic, forcing work stoppages when employees could not come to work.

In December 2014, migrating wild birds brought a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza to the United States. The ensuing outbreak resulted in the largest animal health disaster ever experienced by America.

Federal and state governments spent $879 million in response. The outbreak affected 21 states, lasted until the middle of 2015 and led to the loss of more than 50 million birds on 232 farms.

Subsequent trade bans affected as many as 233,770 farms. The total cost to the U.S. economy was estimated at $3.3 billion.

The estimated economic impact of COVID-19 to the U.S. economy is $16 trillion and climbing.

Biological threats are increasing

The increasing rate of emerging and reemerging diseases, along with biological threats and attempts by those with nefarious intent to attack, point to the need to reduce the risk to America’s critical infrastructure.

COVID-19 is not just about the health care and public health sector any more than the Colonial Pipeline is just about the transportation systems sector. When you consider how vulnerable all sectors (such as chemical, dams, financial services and government facilities sectors) are you realize just how big a challenge we face.

Shame on us if we don’t see the connection between COVID-19 and the Colonial Pipeline hack. Both were made much worse from lack of planning and the inability or unwillingness to face obvious possibilities.

The food we eat, the water we drink, the electricity and gasoline that power our world – all must be protected. We must work to protect our critical infrastructure now, before illness, death and economic disaster overcome the nation and the world.

Tom Ridge, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania and the first U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, and former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle serve on the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why biological attacks are a looming threat to U.S.: Daschle, Ridge