security risk assessment, conducted by the FBI. In honor of November’s Critical Infrastructure Security & Resilience Month, we are reaching out to you to improve the information sharing of critical resources and early warning between our organizations. We’d like to work with APWA to strengthen our network and understand how InfraGard can assist you to get any resources, information, or training you may need to protect your local infrastructure. We are proposing a partnership to focus on critical infrastructure protection during the month of November—something akin to National Public Works Week—only focusing on critical infrastructure protection.
InfraGard focuses on 16 critical infrastructure sectors including water and wastewater systems, transportation, government facilities, emergency services, and dams, among others. See all sectors here: http://www.dhs.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors.
of Investigation in 1996, and has since expanded to become a national-level nonprofit organization, with InfraGard coordinators in every FBI field office. Originally, it was a local effort to gain support from the information technology industry and academia for the FBI’s investigative efforts in the cyber arena, but given so much of the nation’s critical infrastructure is owned by the private sector, estimated as high as 90%, this early model became the backbone for efforts to protect the nation’s infrastructure. The program expanded to other FBI field offices, and in 1998 the FBI assigned national program responsibility for InfraGard to the former National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) and to the FBI’s Cyber Division in 2003. Since 2003, InfraGard Members Alliances have developed a TRUST-based publicprivate sector partnership to ensure reliability and integrity of information exchanged about various terrorism, intelligence, criminal, and security matters.
How does InfraGard protect critical infrastructure?
We believe public works plays a vital role in mitigating, protecting, and responding to threats and attacks on our critical infrastructure (whether natural or man-made). Together we can improve the state of our intelligence and assure we never sustain an attack like that of 9/11 again.
InfraGard focuses on the development, management and protection of the nation’s critical infrastructure— defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21): Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. The PPD advances a national policy to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure and currently identifies 16 critical infrastructure sectors from water and wastewater to transportation to the country’s financial systems.
To find your local InfraGard chapter, go to www.infragard.org or contact your local FBI field office and ask for the Special Agent InfraGard Coordinator. Kristina Tanasichuk is the CEO and founder of the Government Technology & Services Coalition, a nonprofit organization working with small businesses in the federal homeland and national security space. She is also President of INCRMA, the InfraGard chapter representing the Nation’s Capital. She is also founder and president of Women in Homeland Security. She worked with APWA’s Emergency Management Committee and managed the Urban Forum immediately after the events of 9/11. She can be reached at (703) 2017198 or ktanasichuk@gtscoalition.com.
Through monthly meetings, InfraGard chapters work to establish relationships between those responsible—in both the public and private sectors—for protecting our critical infrastructure at the local level. Chapter meetings focus on new and persistent threats, new and existing vulnerabilities, best practices, and what federal resources are available for training, physical and IT security best practices, and early warning. Membership in InfraGard is free but does require an application and a www.apwa.net
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