CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AUTHORITIES.

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AUTHORITIES 1
Critical Infrastructure Authorities
Name
Institution

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AUTHORITIES 2
CRITICAL INFRUSTRACTURE PROTECTION
Introduction
Critical infrastructure protection refers to the measures that are put in place to protect the vital
infrastructure in a region. It also involves the response to incidences that occur which involve
vital infrastructure of that region or a nation. It is the responsibility of the government to protect
these infrastructures against negative events such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters
(Forcepoint, 2019).
Importance of critical infrastructure protection
 Critical infrastructure protection is important since it protects vital infrastructure from
attacks. Infrastructure such as transport, water and electricity systems can easily be affected by
cyber-attacks. This will in turn affect the country’s economy as well as global economies and
communities.
 Such risks could also compromise the integrity of an infrastructure. Events such as
human error, natural disasters and equipment failure can be unpredictable and most times are
unprecedented; hence it is harder to predict when they might occur. Critical infrastructure
protection helps to consider all possible risks when looking for solutions that identify security
anomalies and risks.
 Using critical infrastructure protection increases the chances of identifying vulnerabilities
in a system and being able to see into a number of infrastructures. This reduces the risk of
success of a pre- planned event such as a cyber-attack. It is therefore important to ensure that the
new security updates of these infrastructures address the known vulnerabilities.

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AUTHORITIES 3
Legal framework that govern critical infrastructure at the federal level of government
Federal laws
The Critical Infrastructure Protection Act which was enacted in 2017 by the state of
Oklahoma. This law came up with criminal penalties for anyone who was convicted of
trespassing or entering property willingly that had a critical infrastructure facility without getting
permission from the property’s owner.
National level policies
The Critical infrastructure Information Act was enacted in 2002 and sought out to
facilitate sharing of information related to critical infrastructure among operators and owners of
critical infrastructures and government entities that had the responsibility of infrastructure
protection (Editorial, 2019).
The national Infrastructure Protection Plan 2013 that outlines how the private sector
participants and the national government work together in the critical infrastructure community
to manage all risks so as to achieve resilience and security outcomes (Rand, 2019).
Code of federal regulations
The Protected Critical Infrastructure Information Programme which contains 6 codes of
federal regulations part 29, procedures for handling critical infrastructure information; final rule
that were published in the federal register in 2006. These codes are receipt, validation, handling,
marking and use of critical infrastructure information which had been submitted to the
Department of Homeland Security.
National doctrine publications
The critical infrastructure protection which was issued in 1996 (Cohen, 2010).