CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION: Significant Challenges in Developing Analysis, Warning, and Response Capabilities

The National Infrastructure Protection Center NIPC is an important part of the governments strategy to protect the U.S. infrastructures from hostile attacks, especially computer-based attacks. This testimony draws on a recent GAO report on NIPCs progress in developing national capabilities for analyzing cyber threats and vulnerability data and issuing warnings, enhancing its capabilities for responding to cyber attacks, and establishing information-sharing relationships with governments and private-sector entities. GAO found that NIPCs progress been mixed. NIPC began various critical infrastructure protection efforts that have laid the foundation for future governmentwide efforts. NIPC has also provided valuable support in investigating and responding to attacks on computers. However, the analytical and information-sharing capabilities that are needed to protect the nations critical infrastructures have yet to be achieved, and NIPC has developed only limited warning capabilities. This slow progress is due in part to the fact that NIPCs roles and responsibilities have not been fully defined and are not consistently interpreted by other entities involved in the governments broader critical infrastructure protection strategy. This report summarized an April report GAO-01-323.