Executive Order -- Improving Critical Infrastructure
Cybersecurity
obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/12/executive-order-improving-critical-infrastructurecybersecurity
12 February 2013
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
February 12, 2013
EXECUTIVE ORDER
------IMPROVING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE CYBERSECURITY
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United
States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. Repeated cyber intrusions into critical infrastructure demonstrate the
need for improved cybersecurity. The cyber threat to critical infrastructure continues to
grow and represents one of the most serious national security challenges we must
confront. The national and economic security of the United States depends on the reliable
functioning of the Nation's critical infrastructure in the face of such threats. It is the policy
of the United States to enhance the security and resilience of the Nation's critical
infrastructure and to maintain a cyber environment that encourages efficiency,
innovation, and economic prosperity while promoting safety, security, business
confidentiality, privacy, and civil liberties. We can achieve these goals through a
partnership with the owners and operators of critical infrastructure to improve
cybersecurity information sharing and collaboratively develop and implement risk-based
standards.
Sec. 2. Critical Infrastructure. As used in this order, the term critical infrastructure means
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.
Sec. 3. Policy Coordination. Policy coordination, guidance, dispute resolution, and
periodic in-progress reviews for the functions and programs described and assigned
herein shall be provided through the interagency process established in Presidential
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