Critical entities resilience strengthening tools to small-scale disasters

• Critical entity resilience system and its elements and links are defined. • Environment for strengthening the critical entities resilience is defined. • There are 161 tools suitable for strengthening the critical entities internal resilience. • Procedure for strengthening the critical entities internal resilience is defined. • There is extended version of the CERA (Critical Entities Resilience Assessment) method. The issue of critical infrastructure protection is still largely based on the concept of critical infrastructure resilience. However, it is already clear that this concept must be restructured, primarily due to the adoption of a new European Union directive that focuses on the resilience of critical entities that are owners or operators of individual critical infrastructures. This directive stipulates, among other things, an obligation for critical entities to provide unlimited services necessary for maintaining the most important functions of the state. For this reason, it is necessary to pay increased attention not only to strengthening the resilience of infrastructures, but also to the management processes of critical entities. Based on these facts, 161 tools suitable for strengthening the critical entities internal resilience against small-scale disasters are classified and defined in this article. These strengthening tools are defined for both entities and infrastructural resilience. The article further defines the environment and procedure for strengthening the critical entities internal resilience, thus expanding the application of the existing CERA method, which was originally designed for the purpose of assessing the critical entities resilience to small-scale disasters. The design part of the article also includes a presentation of an example of a practical application of the proposed procedure.