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'Critical infrastructure' is a term used by governments to describe material assets that are essential for the functioning of a society and economy. Most commonly associated with the term are facilities for:

★ electricity generation and distribution;

★ telecommunication;

★ water supply;

★ agriculture, food production and distribution;

★ heating (natural gas, fuel oil);

★ public health;

★ transportation systems (fuel supply, railway network, airports);

★ financial services;

★ security services (police, military).
'Critical-infrastructure protection' is the study, design and implementation of precautionary measures aimed to reduce the risk that critical infrastructure fails as the result of war, disaster, civil unrest, vandalism, or sabotage.

Contents

National critical-infrastructure protection programmes

Germany

United Kingdom

United States

External links

National critical-infrastructure protection programmes

Germany

The German critical-infrastructure protection programme includes IT systems, headed by the German Federal Office for Information Security.

United Kingdom

In the UK the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure provides information, personnel and physical security advice to the businesses and organisations which make up the UK's national infrastructure, helping to reduce its vulnerability to terrorism and other threats.
It can call on resources from other government departments and agencies, including MI5, the Communications Electronics Security Group and other Government departments responsible for national infrastructure sectors.

United States

The USA has had a wide-reaching Critical Infrastructure Protection Program in place since 1996. Its Patriot Act of 2001 defined critical infrastructure as those "systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitation impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters."
These have identified a number of critical infrastructures and responsible agencies:
# Agriculture and Food – Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services
# Water – Environmental Protection Agency
# Public Health – Department of Health and Human Services
# Emergency Services – Department of Homeland Security
# Government – Department of Homeland Security
# Defense Industrial Base – Department of Defense
# Information and Telecommunications – Department of Commerce
# Energy – Department of Energy
# Transportation and Shipping – Department of Transportation
# Banking and Finance – Department of the Treasury
# Chemical Industry and Hazardous Materials – Department of Homeland Security
# Post – Department of Homeland Security
# National monuments and icons - Department of the Interior

External links

★ Infracritical: comparison of US and international definitions of infrastructure]