National Infrastructure Protection Plan and Risk Management Framework (Essay Sample)

Infrastructure Protection and Risk Management Plan
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The 21st century world is characterized by a wide range of both natural and manmade threats and hazards that include but not limited to terrorism attacks, natural calamities, accidents and other form of emergencies. These threats and hazards expose critical natural infrastructure and key resources to either direct or indirect risk. An effective national infrastructure and resources protection system should prioritize prevention of catastrophes that may lead to loses of lives and management of disruptive impacts that may tamper with national economies. In the United States of America, the national infrastructure protection plan (NIPP) has been put in place to manage and reduce the effects of the most serious threats and risks that the national faces. The current NIPP has achieved the above objectives by coming up with a strategy that strikes a balance between the nation’s resiliency and a well focused and risky conscious prevention, protection and preparedness plan (Department of Homeland Security 2009). The NIPP plan, which operates under critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) protection framework, carries out its operations by integrating a vast network of federal agencies, local government agencies, private sector and regional consortia. The overall aim of the NIPP plan is to incorporate multiple jurisdictions and authorities in unifies yet flexible way in enhancing the country’s CIKR protection.
The feedback loop design is a critical part of the NIPP for it tracks the progress of the infrastructure protection plan and suggests necessary improvements to the protection of the CIKR. The feedback loop design consists of various continuous steps that should be followed to protect infrastructure or resources from risk (John 2007). These steps are repeated in reverse order, also referred to as loop order, to fast track the improvements and make necessary improvements. The presence of the feedback loop design works to strengthen the national infrastructure protection program since it measure effectiveness of the program from time to time, making it identify areas of weaknesses and carry out necessary corrections, updates and improvements.
The risk management approach is suitable for protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure since it establishes a comprehensive risk management framework that combines vulnerability, consequences and risk information in order to come up with a holistic rational and systematic assessment of national and regional risk. The risk management approach framework is structured such that it promotes continued improvement in infrastructure and resources protection program. Risk management approach is comprised of six steps namely setting of security goals, identification of target systems, assets, functions and networks, assessment of risks, prioritization of risks, implementation of protective programs and measurement of effectiveness (Department of Homeland Security 2009). The outcomes of these steps is usually reduced risk and improved risk management activities. The second step, that involves identification of target systems, assets, functions and networks, is the most central and critical in the entire risk management framework since narrows down to national resources and installations that are deemed most vulnerable. By developing an inventory of systems, assets and networks located within and without the nation, the step enables the NIPP to focus on the most critical areas as opposed to spreading attention to some areas that may not be under threat at all.
The major criticism that the national infrastructure protection model has faced is that it has vast number of entries that can not effectively be handled using the currently available resources. The next critic is that most of these assets have mo...