President Obama has proclaimed December 2012 as Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Month to recognize the importance of protecting our Nation’s infrastructure resources and enhancing our national security and resilience.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines critical infrastructure as”… the assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”
The protection of critical infrastructure sectors and components is important because:
1) Attacks on critical infrastructure could significantly disrupt the functioning of government and business alike and produce cascading effects far beyond the targeted sector and physical location of the incident.
2) Direct terrorist attacks and natural, manmade, or technological hazards could produce catastrophic losses in terms of human casualties, property destruction, and economic effects, as well as profound damage to public morale and confidence, and
3) Attacks using components of the nation’s critical infrastructure as weapons of mass destruction could have even more devastating physical and psychological consequences.
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE SECTORS
The following comprise the eighteen (18) critical infrastructure sectors within the United States and you can learn more about each one of them by clicking the link associated with each sector:
Please pass this information along to those business continuity, disaster preparedness and disaster recovery members in your local community and where you work.