Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Abstract
Critical infrastructure (CI) systems such as power, water, communications, and emergency services are increasingly exposed to compound risks in which natural disasters and cyber incidents interact and amplify one another. Traditional risk assessments often isolate physical and digital threats, overlooking the cascading dependencies that emerge when operational stress, emergency reconfiguration, and adversarial exploitation coincide. This study conducts a 2019–2025 scoping review and introduces a Geographic Information System (GIS) driven six-stage disaster cyber compounding framework that characterizes, maps, and operationalizes compound risk across interdependent CI sectors. The framework integrates a common operating picture, analytic situational understanding, exposure mapping, threat-fingerprint encoding, detection and prioritization, and coordinated response, with an adaptive feedback loop to refine thresholds and li braries. The paper also outlines tabletop scenarios based on historical U.S. disaster–cyber events to illustrate the GIS work flow’s coordination logic and inform continuous learning. The result is a practical, auditable approach that integrates disaster risk management and cybersecurity within a shared geospatial environment, enabling coordinated analysis and action under compound conditions.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in 2025 Cyber Awareness and Research Symposium (CARS), 2026.
Rights
© 2025, IEEE
APA Citation
Panta, D., Wang, S., Sapkota, A., & Ranganathan, P. (2025). When disasters trigger cyber vulnerabilities: Mapping physical-digital interdependencies in critical infrastructure systems. In 2025 Cyber Awareness and Research Symposium (CARS). IEEE.https://doi.org/10.1109/CARS67163.2025.11337592