PPD-21: Critical Infrastructure Security And Influence

Intelligence and Warning is Border and Transportation Security is responsible for protecting America's borders, territorial waters, and transportation systems by centralizing information-sharing and databases that track and monitor all aspects of border control and America's transportation systems. Domestic Counterterrorism covers a wide variety of activities, ranging from National Security Agency monitoring of telephone conversations to local police monitoring of persons of interest. Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets identifies a clear set of national goals and objectives and outlines the guiding principles that will underpin our efforts to secure the infrastructures and assets vital to our national security, governance, public health and safety, economy, and public confidence. Defending against Catastrophic Threats reduces vulnerability of the United States to terrorism. Emergency Preparedness and Response will create one emergency response plan to be used at all levels of government and will ensure that first-responders, from the federal government level down to local levels, receive proper training and equipment.

As a member of the power sector, DTL Power is absolutely vital to the operations of other critical infrastructure pieces. The other key pieces of critical infrastructure represented in our environment are the Federal Government, Avistel Telecom, Mistral Bank, and Hytema Defense. Electrical power is the core of the US critical infrastructure, and without the energy supplied by the power sector, none of these other infrastructure pieces will be able to continue operations after local backup energy stores are depleted. It is for this reason that DTL Power?s primary security objective is power system uptime.

It is essential to understand America’s critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) and National Infrastructure Protection Program (NIPP) to ensure survivability of its critical assets, while maintaining security for America. “The plans are carried out in practice by an integrated network of Federal departments and agencies, State and local government agencies, private sector entities, and a growing number of regional consortia (DHS, 2009, p. I).” Several agencies work together to mitigate attacks on CIKR to protect public safety and security of the nation. A terrorist may stop at nothing to carry out an attack on CIKR. If an attack or natural disaster does transpire, each agency working together to restore the damage must be timely. Additionally, NIPP helps to identify hazards associated with the various sectors, and provides necessary security measures to harden resources (DHS,

One of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) most important missions is protecting critical infrastructure. Assessing CI vulnerabilities is critical to strengthening their capabilities and ensuring resiliency. Since most of them are privately owned, the Department partners with the private sector in conducting voluntary, non-regulatory vulnerability assessments (“Critical Infrastructure”, 2015). According to Homeland Security (2015), vulnerability assessments are the foundation National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) which outlines how the government and the private sector work together to manage risks to achieve security and resiliency goals (“Critical Infrastructure”, 2015). Protecting America’s electrical power grid is especially complicated because all of the other CIs depend on the energy sector’s

The Quadrennial Homeland Security review suggest six strategic challenges that will drive the overall risk to the nation over the next five years. These six risks include: the terrorist threat; growing cyber threats; biological concerns; nuclear terrorism; transnational criminal organizations; and natural hazards (DHS, 2014). The terrorists threat is, arguably, the most publicized and popular of the six risks the DHS lists. The particular risk is unique in the fact that although it can be planned for and mitigated against by state and local governments, it is primarily a federal responsibility, or at least perceived so by most entities. The DHS itself was established due to the events of September 11th 2001 and it has since been a consistent

A critical infrastructure is defined as any facility, system, or function which provides the foundation for national security, governance, economic vitality, reputation, and way of life. (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/NIPP_InfoSharing.pdf)In short, critical infrastructure is by definition essential for the survival of the nation. The USA PATRIOT Act specifically defines critical infrastructure as "systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, (Jena Baker McNeill and Richard Weitz, 2010) so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating

To improve our readiness to combat and battle these threats. In Seattle,there are secure fiber networks being put together to interlink the government and emergency operations. Not only Seattle but many other cities and countries have invested local funds in creating new 911 centers and emergency operation ceters. Worried about these attacks and threats the United States have “hardened” the control networks that manage electricity and water grids. The entire field of cyber security and information technology has a new way of confronting not only terrorist threats but all of the ongoing issues created by hackers and identity thieves. Knowing if America is safer now than in 2001, especially since Bin Laden's death ,the United States will not know. But in not knowing, where, how, or when a threat could be more than just that the United States has become more vigilant and more prepared (Proud To

Also, the homeland is safeguarded against acts of terrorism, manmade or natural disasters, and focused on actions to protect the citizens, residents, visitors, critical assets, systems, and networks against the Nation’s greatest risks, by enhancing Protection through cooperation and collaboration with all sectors of society to create conditions for a safer, more secure, and more resilient Nation. Furthermore, the Protection capabilities are achieved through specific, but are not limited to, critical infrastructure protection, cybersecurity, border security, immigration security, protection of key leadership and events, maritime security, transportation security, defense of agriculture and food, defense against weapons of mass destruction threats, and health security (National Preparedness…, 2011). Due to the fact that the private sector owns approximately 85 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure (banking and financial institutions, telecommunications networks, energy production,and transmission facilities) there is greater emphasis now on public and private sectors forming effective partnerships for protection. A series of Information Sharing and Analysis Centers is one new feature of infrastructure protection, which are public-private partnerships designed to provide members of

Homeland security can be seen as a loosely based term as it is still a relatively new area of the United States strategy. Since its creation, post September 11, 2001, there has been a plethora of additions and revisions. The homeland mission lies not only within a specific agency, but demands collected participation from U.S. agencies and foreign entities to remain strong, efficient and innovative. One can examine homeland security as having the responsibility of maintaining and protecting the United States by keeping focus within the U.S. while homeland defense is responsible for maintaining the U.S. by keeping focus outside the U.S. Homeland security and homeland defense are different, but both can assist each other in certain aspects. The following paragraphs will compose of accurate definitions regarding homeland security, homeland defense and in end will discuss an in depth summary of the critical infrastructure program. These mentioned areas each have a requirement to be treated as specific in nature in order to not sacrifice their specific definition.

Since the September 11, 2001 events, the United States of America gravitated towards a more aggressive approach in its security. The result of the tragic events was the establishment of homeland security. The White House, the federal government and the Congress joined together to establish it. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush issued an executive order 13228 to establish an Office of Homeland Security within the White House and assigning the Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge as its Director (Bullock, Haddow, & Coppola, 2013, p. 4). Ever since, the United States (U.S.) Department of Homeland Security diversified and evolved the way it is today. The Homeland Defense was also integrated into Homeland Security to protect the U.S. soil and its territories. However, what are Homeland Security and Homeland Defense? This paper will address those question as well as covering their missions/goals, tasks, duties, and responsibilities. In addition, a section of this paper is the assessment of the critical infrastructure protection programs of the U.S. The assessment will also include the overall capability of the nation’s critical infrastructure protection program to ensure the survivability of its critical infrastructure.

United States’ national infrastructure are resources that are vital to keep commerce operating. Technology have allowed the governments and the private sector to share vital information with them. The nation well-being depend on each of the critical infrastructures, the big question is on how to maintain all of our infrastructure sectors operative without any problem. There a big wave of threats to our nation and if one of this threads go through, it can created a multidimensional problem to the infrastructure system of the country. The main concerns that exist in protecting the U.S. against any attacks to any U.S. infrastructure and in the same time on how to have a system that work well with other agencies. For example; is important to

The Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience advances a national unity of effort to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure (The White House Office of the Press Secretary, February 2013). It is imperative for every nation to develop a critical infrastructure protection plan that will provide the essential services to its society. To archive this, a government must be proactive and coordinate its efforts that will reinforce and maintain secure, functioning, and

The private sector plays a vital role in carrying out the objectives within all 16 sector specific plans. The Emergency Services Sector includes but is not limited to first responding services such as; public work, fire, medical or police services. The goals and objectives of ESS specific plans are to provide first responder services as one of their main missions is the prevention to life. This sector is extremely important as they are the first responders to any type of incident that may even be impacted to other sectors. The National Infrastructure Protection Plan for this sector describes the tasks, duties and responsibilities that the private sector has in order to effectively and successfully operate this types of critical infrastructures. Just like any other sector, this sector requires the private sector to have a good relationship with state, local, tribal, territorial governments, Federal Government and outside organizations as well. Threats, risks, and vulnerabilities are acknowledged and analyzed in every respective infrastructure as they are all different. All factors are then prioritized in order to prevent the best security and mitigate the possible consequences. Public and private sectors must have the ability to continue their businesses and operations after an event has occurred. When an incident of event occur, operating plans must be created and established in order to prevent stoppages or deterrence to the operations. This helps reduce the

Nearly every community has some sort of community risk, threat, and assessment plan that takes into account one of the six potential risks that are of concern to homeland security. Though each of these plans will likely differ from one another, many communities will have the same types of information in their plans. This essay will look at the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Guide (THIRA), the Community Risk Reduction Planning Guide, as well as FEMA’s National Preparedness plan. Any combination of these guides are a good starting point for every community in America. At top of every communities list as well as the nation is the protection of the critical infrastructure. Loss of infrastructure regardless of how big or small the community is could have very crippling effects on that community.

The distinction between homeland security and homeland defense is pivotal in gaining a better understanding of how these agencies work and how they correlate to our nations infrastructure. We must understand the designated missions set forth for both these agencies while learning how they meet the tasks appointed to them and resources utilized to accomplish the mission. Learning the fundamentals of our nations infrastructure information must be provided to showcase how these agencies utilize the appropriate resources to guarantee the security of these critical infrastructures. Offering an opinion in the definition of homeland security and how resources are being utilized to fix vulnerabilities is vital to showcase what is being distributed and learned on a researchers and readers level. Homeland security and homeland defense play a pivotal role in ensuring our borders are protected.