Dual-use infrastructure is civilian infrastructure that also supports defense or security operations, such as ports, rail lines, bridges, tunnels, power grids, telecom networks, and related control systems. These assets are built for everyday commerce and public services, but they can become critical movement corridors for troops, equipment, and supplies during a crisis.
In cyber security, dual-use infrastructure matters because disruption can have both civilian and military effects. Attackers may target scheduling systems, remote access, vendor connections, identity controls, or industrial control networks to cause delays, confusion, or reduced availability without destroying the physical asset. Defenders focus on segmentation, access logging, dependency mapping, backup communications, and recovery testing so that a compromised supplier or system does not interrupt operations. Protecting dual-use infrastructure is therefore as much about resilience and governance as it is about malware prevention.