On July 28, 2021, President Biden issued a
Memorandum on Improving Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure
Control Systems. The Memo recognizes that the protection
of the nation's critical infrastructure lies not only with
government, i.e., at the federal, state, local, tribal, and
territorial levels, but with critical infrastructure owners and
operators. In addition, the Memo states that cybersecurity
threats to critical infrastructure, and the systems that control
and operate it, "are among the most significant and growing
issues confronting our Nation...[and] 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." While Section 1 of the Memo provides a
skeletal outline of the Administration's policy concerns
regarding safeguarding critical infrastructure, Sections 2-4 put
the meat on the bones.
