
Infrastructure security is the security provided to protect infrastructure, especially critical infrastructure, such as airports, highways rail transport, hospitals, bridges, transport hubs, network communications, media, the electricity grid, dams, power plants, seaports, oil refineries, and water systems.
- Chemical Sector.
- Commercial Facilities Sector.
- Communications Sector.
- Critical Manufacturing Sector.
- Dams Sector.
- Defense Industrial Base Sector.
- Emergency Services Sector.
- Energy Sector.
How many critical infrastructure sectors are there?
There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof. Was this webpage helpful?
What are the different levels of Infrastructure Security?
There is no universal definition of the various levels or categories of infrastructure security, but in the enterprise, one common way to look at security includes securing the following four levels: Physical Level: Infrastructure needs physical protection in the form of locked doors, fences, backup generators, security cameras and the like.
How do you design a network infrastructure for security?
Creating the Logical Design for Network Infrastructure Security Design a public key infrastructure (PKI) that uses Certificate Services. Design a logical authentication strategy. Design security for network management. Design a security update infrastructure.
What is a security strategy for infrastructure?
Physical Level: Infrastructure needs physical protection in the form of locked doors, fences, backup generators, security cameras and the like. Failover plans that locate backup equipment in another part of the world are also a part of a physical security strategy.

What are the infrastructure security examples?
These security measures can include access control, application security, firewalls, virtual private networks (VPN), behavioral analytics, intrusion prevention systems, and wireless security.
What are the four key critical infrastructures?
Transportation, commerce, clean water and electricity all rely on these vital systems.
What are the most important critical infrastructure sectors?
To illustrate dependencies among critical systems, let's take a more in-depth look at some of the most universally important infrastructure sectors – Communications, Energy, Transportation, and Water.
What is critical infrastructure security?
Critical infrastructure security is the area of concern surrounding the protection of systems, networks and assets whose continuous operation is deemed necessary to ensure the security of a given nation, its economy, and the public's health and/or safety.
What are the 10 critical infrastructure sectors?
At the national level, the Strategy classifies critical infrastructure within the 10 following sectors: energy and utilities, finance, food, transportation, government, information and communication technology, health, safety, water, manufacturing.
What are infrastructure sectors?
Infrastructure sector focuses on major infrastructure sectors such as power, roads and bridges, dams and urban infrastructure. “Infrastructure is generally understood as the basic building blocks required for an economy to function efficiently”.
Which critical infrastructure is most vulnerable?
Core infrastructure is the most vulnerable in any global crisis due to the massive impacts that an attack or outage would have on citizens. This infrastructure includes the energy, water, transportation, and healthcare systems that are needed every day to survive.
Is security in critical infrastructure important?
Critical Infrastructure security is of paramount importance in protecting systems and services that are essential to society and the economy: power and water distribution networks, transport and communications grids.
Is cybersecurity part of infrastructure?
Cybersecurity refers to the practice of reducing cyber risk through the protection of the entire information technology (IT) infrastructure, including systems, applications, hardware, software, and data.
Why is infrastructure security important?
Infrastructure security, which includes critical infrastructure security, is critical both for preventing damage to technology assets and data due to attack or disaster. It's also necessary for minimizing the amount of damage in the event of a successful attack or if a disaster occurs.
What is critical infrastructure in NIST?
Definition(s): System and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the U.S. that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.
Who is responsible for critical infrastructure?
In addition, the PDD identified four activities where the federal government controls the critical infrastructure: internal security and federal law enforcement; foreign intelligence; foreign affairs; and national defense. A lead agency was assigned to each of these "sectors" (see Table 1).
What are critical infrastructure and key resources?
CIKR stands for “Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources” – an umbrella term referring to the assets of the United States essential to the nation's security, public health and safety, economic vitality, and way of life.
What are the critical infrastructure industries?
Critical Infrastructure SectorsChemical Sector.Commercial Facilities Sector.Communications Sector.Critical Manufacturing Sector.Dams Sector.Defense Industrial Base Sector.Emergency Services Sector.Energy Sector.More items...•
What is the most vulnerable critical infrastructure?
Core infrastructure is the most vulnerable in any global crisis due to the massive impacts that an attack or outage would have on citizens. This infrastructure includes the energy, water, transportation, and healthcare systems that are needed every day to survive.
Which of the following is an example of a critical infrastructure or key resource that can be found in a community?
Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) These components include public safety services, health care, utilities, transportation systems, lifelines, and facilities that, if impacted by a hazard event, could result in high potential loss or release of hazardous materials.
What is infrastructure security?
Fundamentally, infrastructure security describes a high-level way of thinking about the protection of the entirety of the organization’s technology perimeter. More tactical security plans — (e.g. how will we protect the data on our workers’ laptops?) — may be developed as subsets beneath that overarching strategy.
Why is infrastructure security important?
Infrastructure security also plays an important role by minimizing the risk of damage due to user carelessness. Most malware doesn’t end up on the corporate network because an internal user intentionally put it there (although insider attacks like these do happen); more often it happens because a user unthinkingly clicks on an email attachment or a malicious link. Infrastructure security systems and protocols help to mitigate risk when these mistakes inevitably occur.
Why is cloud security important?
With the rapid growth of the cloud, cloud security is of critical importance — largely due to the rise in attacks against cloud infrastructure. But securing cloud infrastructure is difficult for many reasons: an increase in the size of the attack surface, a lack of complete visibility into how cloud services are operating during runtime, the dynamic and often temporary nature of cloud-based workloads, and the general complexity of a cloud environment, particularly when multiple cloud services are involved.
Why do attackers target infrastructure?
Attackers have long targeted infrastructure because it represents a potential gold mine for their efforts. Unfortunately, because of its expansive size and complexity, it also presents a challenge for security operations teams to secure. With the rise of IoT devices and the proliferation of cloud services, the typical enterprise now finds itself with a daunting attack surface that is increasingly vulnerable to both organized attackers and the threat of natural disaster. Only through careful infrastructure protection can you truly mitigate threats and keep your infrastructure environment — and data — safe from attack.
Why is network infrastructure so complex?
Network infrastructure is complex because it is typically composed of a vast number of hardware and software components. These include physical devices such as routers, switches, servers, wireless access points and even cabling. Vulnerabilities, however, are primarily attributed to the software and firmware that operate the network infrastructure, including server operating systems, network management, network communications systems, firewalls and other security application configurations, and routing software.
What is the role of administrator in network infrastructure?
It is in the network infrastructure where the enterprise must maintain the highest level of diligence. Administrators must apply patches when they are released, double-check configurations to ensure they are correct, and develop and adhere to policies to ensure the network is kept as secure as possible.
What is network security?
Network Level: At its core, network security protects data as it travels into, out of and across the network. This includes traffic encryption, whether it is on-premises or in the cloud, proper firewall management and the use of authentication and authorization systems.
What is proofing infrastructure against these risks?
Proofing infrastructure against these risks will mean upgrading existing facilities and building new ones. And the long-term benefits will outstrip the costs, the World Bank says – making infrastructure resilient in low- and middle-income countries would create four dollars in benefit for every one dollar invested.
How much does disruption to infrastructure cost?
Disruption to infrastructure costs households and companies in low- and middle-income countries as much as USD 647 billion a year, according to the World Bank, and that’s on top of the misery of being without basic services.
How do cities contribute to global GDP?
Cities generate more than 80% of global GDP, improve productivity and foster innovation. But their expansion creates demand for jobs, affordable housing, transport infrastructure and basic services, particularly for the nearly 1 billion urban poor who live in informal settlements in or near cities.
What are the goals of developing Asia?
Other goals cover clean water and sanitation, affordable clean energy and sustainable cities. 4. Renewable energy. Developing Asia not only has the natural resources to power green energy plants, like solar and wave, but it is already investing heavily, with China playing a leading role.
How many people live in urban areas in 2050?
More than half the world’s population – 4.2 billion people – live in urban areas, and this is forecast to increase by around 2.4 billion by 2050. The total urban built-up area will expand by 1.2 million square kilometres, the World Bank predicts.
What will China spend on in 2030?
China plans to increase spending on “new infrastructure” almost fivefold by 2030, including investment in 5G networks, the industrial Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, data centres and electric vehicles. By 2030, the nation’s digital economy will contribute half of GDP, up from 35% today. 3.
Is health infrastructure a part of social planning?
Whichever funding approach is chosen, the Sigma report says health infrastructure will need to be an integrated part of social planning.
How many critical infrastructure sectors are there?
There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.
What is the vision of the Infrastructure Security Division?
The vision of the Infrastructure Security Division is secure and resilient critical infrastructure across the Nation achieved through sound risk management, collaboration, information sharing, innovation, effective program management, and a highly skilled workforce.
What is CISA security?
CISA’s Infrastructure Security Division coordinates and collaborates across government and the private sector. The Division conducts and facilitates vulnerability and consequence assessments to help critical infrastructure owners and operators and State, local, tribal, and territorial partners understand and address risks to critical infrastructure. It also provides information on emerging threats and hazards so that appropriate actions can be taken, as well as tools and training to partners to help partners in government and industry manage the risks to their assets, systems, and networks.
What is infrastructure assessment?
Infrastructure Assessments and Analysis leads the Department’s efforts to gather and manage vital information regarding the nation’s critical infrastructure. The division helps ensure needed infrastructure data is available to homeland security partners by identifying information sources and developing applications to use and analyze critical infrastructure data.
What is the CISA program?
The CISA Chemical Security program office is responsible for implementing chemical security regulatory programs and developing voluntary chemical security resources that all facilities with hazardous chemicals can implement regardless of regulatory status.
What is infrastructure security?
Infrastructure security refers to the protection of the infrastructure, which spans across the organization and plays a crucial role in achieving its business objectives. The infrastructure should be protected against natural disasters, terrorist activities, sabotage, cyber threats, and any activity that can harm the infrastructure.
What is the goal of a secure infrastructure?
The goal of a secure infrastructure is to maintain confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. A common dilemma faced by security practitioners is how to find a balance between security and functionality. It's obvious that if stringent security measures are in place, the functionality will be considerably reduced.
What is Infrastructure?
The infrastructure is of the utmost value to an enterprise, and its destruction could have a debilitating impact. The critical infrastructure may include its data center, network devices, servers and workstations, and other information technology (IT) assets.
What is the first step in a security strategy?
The first step is to understand the enterprise, it's working, and the environment in which it operates . The second step is to identify threats that may impact it. After getting all this information, the development of a secure IT Infrastructure can proceed. The important components of an effective security strategy are its people, processes, and technology.
Why do organizations need up to date security solutions?
Organizations need up-to-date security solutions that can protect their confidential information and data from ever-increasing threats. This is possible by having integrated security across the organization. Defense in depth best exemplifies integrated security. It begins at the core network areas and must be assimilated into the entire organizational structure to meet the organization's mission.
Does security protect the enterprise?
There are a lot of frameworks that can be a starting point to build the processes. Implementing a security solution merely does not protect the enterprise, but cooperation from departments, people, and the processes can make the solution work effectively and efficiently, thereby securing the enterprise.
Where did the word security systems infrastructure come from?
What about the term “security systems infrastructure?”. Wikipedia explains that the word was imported from French, where it means subgrade, the native material underneath a constructed pavement or railway. The word is a combination of the Latin prefix “infra,” meaning “below” and “structure.”.
What is a good security function?
A good security function is not only well-aligned with the business, but is also integrated into its decision and planning processes. To my thinking, calling it “security infrastructure” doesn’t quite seem to make sense. What about the term “security systems infrastructure?”.
What is infrastructure security?
Infrastructure security is at the root of your entire corporate security plan. Other individual security area plans (ISAPs) may overlap with your infrastructure security plan to some extent. For example, a wireless network is part of your infrastructure, but it’s also a large enough area to be addressed in a separate project plan.
What is critical infrastructure?
It is hard to discuss Critical Infrastructure security without referring to the North American Electric Reliability Corporations’ Critical Infrastructure Protection reliability standards (NERC CIP). Although NERC CIP standards are only enforceable upon North American bulk electric systems, the standards represented are technically sound and in alignment with other standards, and are presented in the spirit of improving the security and reliability of the electric industry.1 Further, the critical infrastructures of the electric utilities—specifically the distributed control systems responsible for the generation of electricity and the stations, substations, and control facilities—utilize common industrial network assets and protocols, making the standards relevant to a wider base of industrial network operators.
How many UK government departments are being targeted by specifically engineered viral attacks?
“Three hundred UK government departments and businesses are being targeted by specifically engineered viral attacks. A report from the National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre (NISCC) suggests the bodies, critical to the country's infrastructure, have been the subject of attacks mainly originating from the Far East. ‘The provenance goes back a number of months,’ said Roger Cumming, director at NISCC. ‘Over the last few months we've seen consistent attacks against the UK critical national infrastructure. What characterizes it is the scale rather than anything else.’ According to NISCC, the attacks take the form of Trojan viruses intended to steal information specific to the UK national infrastructure, including information about trade and commerce. Cumming said NISCC is working with foreign Computer Emergency Response Team agencies to shut down the virus-writing operations…. ‘Finally the NISCC has awoken to the serious issue of cyber crime and is actively tackling the problem. Businesses that have been lagging behind in getting the right security protection in place need to sit up and listen to the NISCC's warning against this new onslaught of cyber attacks,’ said Bob Jones, of Internet security company Equiinet. ‘Whilst antivirus software and firewalls are critical components of any security infrastructure, the NISCC is right in its statement that companies need to go beyond these traditional defenses.’”26
What is CIP 001-4?
CIP-001-4—Sabotage Reporting. Requires that all disturbances or unusual occurrences, suspected or determined to be caused by sabotage, shall be reported to the appropriate systems, governmental agencies, and regulatory bodies. 2
When was the 2005 NISCC advisory issued?
On July 8, 2005 the NISCC issued a separate advisory (18/05 ID# 20050708-00561) with respect to the confirmed use of e-mail to deliver a Trojan attack.
What is the aim of an attacker?
The attackers’ aim appears to be the covert gathering and transmitting of commercially or economically valuable information.
Do firewalls and antivirus software give complete protection?
Anti-virus software and firewalls do not give complete protection. Trojans can communicate with the attackers using common ports (for example, HTTP, DNS, SSL) and can be modified to avoid anti-virus detection.

Chemical Security
- CISA has developed regulatory and voluntary programs and resources to help stakeholders—such as private industry, public sector, academia, and law enforcement—enhance the security of facilities that possess dangerous chemicals. The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (C…
Federal Facility Security
- The Interagency Security Committee’s mission is to enhance the quality and effectiveness of physical security in and the protection of buildings and nonmilitary federal facilities in the United States. The ISC standards apply to all nonmilitary federal facilities in the United States—whether government-owned, leased, or managed; to be constructed or modernized; or to be purchased. C…
Information Sharing
- When an event or attack occurs that affects our nation’s critical infrastructure, every second makes a difference. Thus, CISA plays a vital role in sharing information with both public and private sector partners that is essential to the nation’s security and resilience. CISA shares information online through portals like HSIN-CI and Gateway, as well as through meetings, confe…
Sector Partnerships
- The protection of the nation's critical infrastructure requires effective partnerships that foster integrated, collaborative engagement and interaction among public and private sector partners across all 16 critical infrastructure sectors. Both the government and private sectors have formed partnerships under a sector coordinating council structure to fulfill our shared responsibility to p…
Securing Soft Targets and Crowded Places
- CISA is prioritizing soft target and crowded places security. The government, law enforcement, owners and operators of public venues and events, and the public all share responsibility for securing soft targets and crowded places. Together, we have the power to stop attacks before they occur by investing in security, sharing information, enhancing preparedness and staying vig…
Training and Exercises
- CISA provides training on a range of topics related to critical infrastructure security, including bombing prevention and active shooter preparedness. Subject matter experts deliver the training through a variety of means, including independent study courses, virtual instructor-led training, and in-person classroom training. Additionally, CISA facilitates exercises at the community level…