The NIST Framework -

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued a “Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity” on February 12th. This set of voluntary best practices for critical infrastructure was developed over the course of the past year based on stakeholder input during a number of open comment periods and stakeholder workshops under President Obama’s Cybersecurity Executive Order that was issued in February 2013. As part of the framework, NIST also released a Roadmap discussing next steps and identifying key areas for development, alignment, and collaboration.

For the purposes of the framework and roadmap, critical infrastructure is defined as “systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.” Now that NIST has released the final framework, it will be up to the Department of Homeland Security to promote the voluntary best practices.