The CIPC (Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee) operates under

[mmehedi*#]

President Obama instructed NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology to work with institutions and businesses directly affected by the executive order for the purpose of creating a voluntary plan designed to minimize the risks of cybercrime on the nation’s critical infrastructure. All of these efforts were undertaken in order to unify standards and procedures in a diverse cross-section of sectors and to create guidelines which could be implemented rapidly. To this end, inter-industry communication and collaboration were also encouraged. NIST unveiled a first draft of the Framework in February of 2014 along with an accompanying roadmap which revealed the Institute’s intended future direction for the Framework.

Predictably, efforts to curtail cybercrime, hacktivism, cyber-terrorist activity, and cyber-warfare, involve an expanding web of governmental agencies and private sector interests. Among these is NERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. NERC is “a not-for-profit international regulatory authority whose mission is australia mobile number list free to assure the reliability of the bulk power system in North America.” 5 Responsible for The US, Canada, and part of Baja California, Mexico, NERC creates reliability standards and enforces them. It’s also involved in the training and certification of industry personnel.



the NERC umbrella. It is made up of cyber, operations, and physical security experts from the industry. It also includes the Electricity Sub-sector Coordinating Council (ESCC) which works in tandem with the federal government to develop concepts and resources designed to protect critical infrastructure and expedite the exchange of vital information concerning identified systematic weaknesses.