Critical infrastructure

If a nation were a living being, critical infrastructure would be the blood vessels, nervous system, immune responses, and other functions necessary for it to function. U.S. policy was first stated by President Bill Clinton in Presidential Decision Directive 63, and most industrialized nations have equivalents:

physical and cyber-based systems essential to the minimum operations of the economy and government. They include, but are not limited to, telecommunications, energy, banking and finance, transportation, water systems and emergency services, both governmental and private. Many of the nation's critical infrastructures have historically been physically and logically separate systems that had little interdependence. As a result of advances in information technology and the necessity of improved efficiency, however, these infrastructures have become increasingly automated and interlinked. These same advances have created new vulnerabilities to equipment failure, human error, weather and other natural causes, and physical and cyber attacks. Addressing these vulnerabilities will necessarily require flexible, evolutionary approaches that span both the public and private sectors, and protect both domestic and international security.

Critical missions

Information and communications

If those trying to repair damaged infrastructure cannot communicate, little will be accomplished. It may not be intuitive, but the communications systems that have the highest priority for repair are not those assigned to top executives, but to network management and repair. Most of the other critical functions also depend on computing and communications, so the core communications systems are the most critical of all.

Banking and finance

In this categories are institutions involved with monetary transactions and of financial instruments equivalent to money, including transfer, storage and saving, investment, exchange and disbursement.