Daily cyber attacks and other threats naturally take up the short-term attention of many governmental agencies, but there is a need for a more strategic look at risks to the nation’s critical infrastructure. A center within the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, is charged with examining how to address concerns in the long-term. Known as the NRMC, the National Risk Management Center functions as CISA’s planning, analysis and collaboration arm, helping the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to evaluate the interdependencies of the nation’s critical infrastructure and working to identify and take action on the largest risks to the 16 U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, says Daniel Kroese, acting deputy director, NRMC. Essentially, the center focuses on the “long game” of cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection, by providing long-term efforts aimed at stakeholder development and collective action, cross-cutting various sectors.
“We divide our operations principally into two main buckets,” Kroese explains. “One is analysis of the risks to critical infrastructure, including cybersecurity…