Critical Infrastructure Protection

Benefit: MTSS has performed assessments for local jurisdictions to define vulnerable targets and assist in defining objectives for security and protection.

Description: Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) is a national program to assure the security of vulnerable and interconnected infrastructures of the United States. In May 1998, President Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive PDD-63 on the subject of Critical Infrastructure Protection. This recognized certain parts of the national infrastructure as critical to the national and economic security of the United States and the well being of its citizenry, and required steps to be taken to protect it.

This was updated on December 17, 2003 by President Bush through Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-7 for Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization, and Protection. The directive broadened the definition of infrastructure in accordance with the Patriot Act, as the physical and virtual systems that are vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety.

The systems and networks that make up the infrastructure of society are often taken for granted; yet a disruption to just one of those systems can have dire consequences across other sectors.

An entire region can become debilitated because some critical elements in the infrastructure become disabled through natural disaster. While potentially in contravention of the Geneva Conventions, military forces have also recognized that it can cripple an enemy's ability to resist by attacking key elements of its civilian and military infrastructure.

Government recognized that it needed to prepare for disabling events and should monitor its critical infrastructure continuously. In order to accomplish this it developed common definitions and a shared understanding of critical infrastructure.

Critical Infrastructure Protection is therefore a nationwide program, with government operating in partnership with private industry. The program includes a national structure and a National Infrastructure Assurance Plan. It requires each sector to

• Assess its vulnerabilities to both physical and cyber attacks;
• Plan to eliminate significant vulnerabilities;
• Develop systems to identify and prevent attempted attacks;
• Alert, contain and rebuff attacks and then, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to rebuild essential capabilities.

Past Performance:

• Palm Beach County, Florida