Critical Infrastructures

9-1 BACKGROUND: At the latest NPPD staff meeting, Mr. Krebs asked for a CIRRUS point paper addressing the “international” aspect of critical infrastructure. Mr. Krebs’ focus regarding this specific aspect is a result of increasing attention being paid to and interactions with our relevant stakeholders. The point paper’s content is to support Mr. Krebs’ becoming more familiar with the international aspect of critical infrastructure since his upcoming travels, meetings, and conferences requiring his presence will be increasingly associated with international interactions and implications. I’d like our Team to discuss this topic; I’ll use your discussion inputs and comments to develop a point paper back to Mr. Krebs’ staff for action closure. PoD Tasker #9-1: Discuss the concept of “international” as it relates to critical infrastructure. Specially, identify what you believe are the three (3) top aspects of the international aspect of critical infrastructure that Mr. Krebs needs to be aware of. Be sure to provide a short discussion as to why you’ve identified each of the aspects you discuss. When identifying your top three aspects, be sure to place them in priority order. 9-2 BACKGROUND: At the latest NPPD staff meeting, Mr. Krebs asked for a second CIRRUS point paper addressing the differences and similarities, strengths and weaknesses, etc. when comparing the critical infrastructures of the U.S. and other international critical infrastructures. As with tasker #9-1, this question is meant to help support Mr. Krebs’ to become more familiar with the international aspect of critical infrastructure since his upcoming travels, meetings, and conferences requiring his presence will be increasingly associated with international interactions and implications. I’d like our Team to discuss this topic; I’ll use your discussion inputs and comments to develop a point paper back to Mr. Krebs’ staff for action closure. PoD Tasker #9-2: Discuss the differences and similarities, strengths and weaknesses, etc. when comparing the critical infrastructures of the U.S. to other international critical infrastructures. Potential topics to address include cyber and physical capabilities, policies and guidance, the types of threats (natural and man-made) being faced, current state of preparedness (resilience, recovery, etc.), and/or anything else you feel would help Mr. Krebs to better understand your comparison discussion. While there are many capable resources at your disposal with a some research, I’ve attached an article by de Jong-Chen and O’Brien (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/approach_to_critical_infrastructure_prote ction.pdf as a potential starting point (see Appendix). 9-3 BACKGROUND: At the latest NPPD staff meeting, Mr. Krebs tasked all of his NPPD Office Chiefs to each provide a point paper addressing the topic of “supply chain” as it relates to critical infrastructure – both from a national and international perspective. This “supply chain” topic has been a concern with DHS for quite a while; one of the latest major policy documents is the National Strategy for Global Supply Chain Management issued by The White House in 2012 (see Appendix A; https://www.dhs.gov/national-strategy-global-supply-chain-security). The supply chain topic has gained some recent attention when DHS announced they had “launched in internal supply chain cybersecurity initiative to determine where government agencies and private companies are lacking” (see Appendix B; https://fcw.com/articles/2018/02/14/dhs-supply-chain-security.aspx). Subsequently, Mr. Krebs has recently discussed this same topic when addressing an advisory group that “the push is designed to shore up the domestic infrastructure base” (see Appendix C; https://fcw.com/articles/2018/08/15/dhs-nstac-supply-chain.aspx). Most recently, the DHS Press Secretary issued a statement that, in part, says “Just this month – National Cybersecurity Awareness Month – we launched several government-industry initiatives to develop near- and long-term solutions to manage risk posed by the complex challenges of increasingly global supply chains” (see Appendix D; https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/10/06/statement-dhs-press-secretaryrecent-media-reports-potential-supply-chain-compromise). Therefore, I’d like our Team to discuss this topic; I’ll use your discussion inputs and comments to develop a point paper back to Mr. Krebs’ staff for action closure. PoD Tasker #9-3: Discuss the concept of “supply chains” as it relates to critical infrastructure – both from a national and international perspective. Provide a general overview of what you think is meant by “supply chains” as it relates to critical infrastructure. What are some of the challenges? What might be one or more of the major recent initiative(s) to address this issue, and what do you think are some of the strengths and/or weaknesses of the initative(s) you’ve identified. Etc.