National Security Memorandum on Improving Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Control Systems

"Protection of our Nation’s critical infrastructure is a responsibility of the government at the Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial levels and of the owners and operators of that infrastructure.  The cybersecurity threats posed to the systems that control and operate the critical infrastructure on which we all depend are among the most significant and growing issues confronting our Nation.  The degradation, destruction, or malfunction of systems that control this infrastructure could cause significant harm to the national and economic security of the United States.

Section 1.  Policy.  It is the policy of my Administration to safeguard the critical infrastructure of the Nation, with a particular focus on the cybersecurity and resilience of systems supporting National Critical Functions, defined as the functions of Government and the private sector so vital to the United States that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on national security, economic security, public health or safety, or any combination thereof. 

Sec. 2.  Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative.  Accordingly, I have established an Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative (Initiative), a voluntary, collaborative effort between the Federal Government and the critical infrastructure community to significantly improve the cybersecurity of these critical systems.  The primary objective of this Initiative is to defend the United States’ critical infrastructure by encouraging and facilitating deployment of technologies and systems that provide threat visibility, indications, detection, and warnings, and that facilitate response capabilities for cybersecurity in essential control system and operational technology networks.  The goal of the Initiative is to greatly expand deployment of these technologies across priority critical infrastructure..."
Cybersecurity and infrastructure