Critical infrastructure protection

Americans rely on critical infrastructures to protect the nation, maintain a strong economy, and enhance quality of life. These infrastructures—which include the electrical power grid, transportation systems, information networks, banking and finance systems, manufacturing and distribution, and more—are evolving and modernizing. They have become increasingly complex, connected, and vulnerable to adverse conditions, such as cyber and physical attacks.

To secure our national economy and the livelihood of all citizens, the United States must protect its critical infrastructures. In fact, the federal government has identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors that are considered so essential that if they sustained an attack or disruption, there would be debilitating effects on national security, public health or safety, the economy, or all the above. Securing these systems from cyber or physical threats is increasingly important—and challenging—as these threats become more complex, persistent, and destructive.

The twenty-first century system of commerce, energy, and security revolves around the ability to exchange information through the Internet. The same goes for our energy systems, which are working toward faster and more sustainable designs to support the integration of clean energy resources into the grid and slow the pace—and deadly impacts—of climate change.

Meanwhile, cybercriminals are becoming more and more sophisticated and are aiming at larger targets. Federal and state government databases, regional utilities, health care systems, and large credit card and consumer shopping enterprises have all been victims of malicious hackers.

It has never been more crucial to protect this critical physical and cyber infrastructure to assure the health and security of every citizen and the longevity of the planet. It will take the combined efforts of both federal and private investments in research and development to make it happen.

Protecting our nation’s cyber and physical critical infrastructure—and making it more resilient—is a national imperative, and everyone has a stake in it. Roads, railways, and telephone lines began spreading across the United States in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the 1930s, large-scale hydropower plants began generating electricity for a growing nation while also providing water reserves for a booming farming business in western dryland areas.  

Electricity transmission and distribution systems followed suit, and by the 1950s, energy became readily available across larger swaths of the United States. Regional utilities could exchange electricity on the open market, helping to keep energy prices reasonable for consumers and industry. In the same era, the interstate highway system was completed, and airline passenger service began in earnest. All the elements were in place for a bustling national economy. In the late 1950s, computers running on integrated circuits emerged from government laboratories into the public domain, and the World Wide Web made its debut in the 1990s. Subsequent consumer-driven capabilities marked a turning point in computing, commerce, and society.  

Meanwhile, scientists began warning of the effects of fossil fuels on Earth’s atmosphere based on a trajectory of carbon dioxide measurements starting in 1958. The trajectory, known as the Keeling Curve, continues to rise to this day.

Protection of critical U.S. infrastructure was first formally recognized as a national priority in 1998, when then-President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13010, establishing a Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection.

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