New DHS Plan Reorganizes Infrastructure Protection

The Department of Homeland Security released a new national R&D plan last week, making huge changes to the way we protect the nation’s critical infrastructure.

According to an article by Alice Lipowicz on the Government Computer News website, the DHS will no longer examine critical infrastructure by sector (i.e. agriculture, financial services, energy, water, health care, etc.), but will now use the new National Plan for Research and Development in Support of Critical Infrastructure Protection to examine nine different themes in all sectors that encompass both physical security and cybersecurity concerns.

Lipowicz says those nine themes are:
•  Detection and sensor systems
•  Protection and prevention
•  Entry and access portals
•  Insider threat's
•  Analysis and decision support systems
•  Response, recovery and reconstitution
•  Emerging threats
•  Advanced architectures and system design, and
•  Human and social issues

The new plan says that it does depart from past efforts that were primarily organized by sector. Instead, the plan says it “recognizes that many different sectors are vulnerable to the same threats, and that interconnections between sectors must be addressed as well,” Lipowicz says.

To read the full article, click here: www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/36739-1.html