Pentagon Backs National Security Memo 22

U.S. Department of Defense

On April 30, the White House released National Security Memorandum (NSM)-22 on Critical Infrastructure, to secure and enhance the resilience of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors that provide essential services to the American people, to include the energy, communications, transportation, water, and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) services that DoD relies on to operate.

We know that the People's Republic of China and Russia are actively targeting U.S. critical infrastructure to be poised to disrupt our society and interfere with DoD's operations in a crisis. Extreme weather also increasingly poses a risk to our mission. Proactive steps by government and industry partners, as outlined in this NSM, are essential to ensure that our critical infrastructure can withstand and operate through disruption, no matter the cause.

DoD will continue to invest in capabilities like the Critical Infrastructure Defense Analytic Center and in civilian-military collaboration with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels of government to manage risk to the critical infrastructure that support DoD missions. As the Sector Risk Management Agency for the DIB, DoD will leverage major Secretary of Defense-level initiatives like the DOD DIB Cyber Strategy and the National Defense Industrial Base Strategy. DoD will continue to support robust information exchanges and collaboration with industry, and we will continue to assess and manage risk to the DIB. We will develop a sector-wide risk management program, leveraging and aligning DoD wide efforts. Finally, we will support and leverage Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) led cross-sector risk management, in coordination with other federal agencies, to address challenges in areas where DoD cannot effectively act alone.

DoD thanks industry partners in the National Defense Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ND-ISAC), and in the Sector Coordinating Council (SCC) who are key partners for this NSM's implementation, and all of the components across DoD who are coming together to support and enable this NSM's success.

DoD encourages all DIB companies to join the ND-ISAC, the SCC, and the DoD DIB Cybersecurity programs to receive assistance and support, and to be a part of this important effort.

/Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.