National Critical Functions
A vital framework for cross-cutting risk analysis.
National Critical Functions (NCFs) are functions of government and the private sector so vital to the United States that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.
CISA, through the National Risk Management Center (NRMC), brings the private sector, government agencies, and other key stakeholders together to identify, analyze, prioritize, and manage the most significant risks to these important functions.
NCFs Overview
In April 2019, CISA published its initial set of NCFs, which has since been complemented by definitions for each function. The effort to identify these critical functions was conducted in collaboration with government and industry partners associated with all 16 critical infrastructure sectors, State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial (SLTT) partners, and other stakeholders.
The set of NCFs are organized into four areas:
Connections
Connections by technologies that enable critical communications and capabilities to send and receive data (e.g., internet connectivity),
Distribution
Distribution methods that allow the movement of goods, people, and utilities inside and outside the United States (e.g., electricity distribution or cargo transportation),
Management
Management processes that ensure our national security and public health and safety (e.g., management of hazardous material or national emergencies), and
Supplies
Supplies of materials, goods and services that secure our economy (e.g., clean water, housing, and research and development).
The NCFs allows for a more robust prioritization of critical infrastructure and a more systematic approach to corresponding risk management activity. They represent an evolution to the critical infrastructure risk management framework established in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. While the previous approach focused almost entirely on entity level risk management as opposed to critical outcomes, the NCF approach enables a richer understanding of how entities come together to produce critical functions, and what assets, systems, networks, and technologies underpin those functions.
By viewing risk through a functional lens, we can ultimately add resilience and harden systems across the critical infrastructure ecosystem in a more targeted, prioritized, and strategic manner. This allows for a more holistic analysis of risks and associated dependencies that may have cascading impacts within and across sectors.
NCFs in Action
Policy
NCFs have been pivotal in guiding federal policy on cybersecurity and critical infrastructure risk management. Specifically, NCFs are featured in the National Cyber Strategy, the DHS Cybersecurity Strategy, and the National Strategy to Secure 5G. The Executive Order on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses also leverages the definition of NCFs to call on the critical infrastructure community to better understand the effects of electromagnetic pulses (EMP) through assessment and prioritization of NCFs.
Operational Risk Management Support
The NCFs have been utilized to support disaster-specific response and restoration operations. Most prominently, the NCFs have helped prioritize risk management needs for COVID-19 response, security needs around heightened geopolitical tensions, and preparedness for impending hurricanes.
For COVID-19, the NRMC used the NCF structure to create a register of risks to critical infrastructure organized around potential degradation from drivers such as commodity concerns, workforce concerns, demand shocks, and change in the cyber risk posture. This will serve as a template for future efforts by the NRMC, including the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) structure, to ultimately create a more expansive NCF Risk Register.
Analytic Enhancement
The provisioning of each NCF involves a complex series of processes composed of sub-functions and dependencies. The Suite of Tools for the Analysis of Risk (STAR) is an innovative engine for functional risk assessment of critical infrastructure at the national scale.
Looking Ahead
The NCF framework established a new language to talk about critical infrastructure risk management. The value of the NCFs is both their ability to convey the complexities and dependencies of critical infrastructure and their effectiveness as a framework to develop data. The NRMC will continue developing this information in coordination with critical infrastructure stakeholders, endeavoring to deepen the understanding of who and what is required for the successful, sustained, and resilient operation of individual NCFs. This process will also inform an NCF Risk Register that catalogs risks and risk management approaches that best address specific threats and vulnerabilities. This is a complex and ongoing undertaking and will rely heavily on the expertise of the critical infrastructure community.
Policy, doctrine, and process enhancements will continue and additional analysis will support structured risk management initiatives, such as CISA’s ongoing efforts for Election Security and ICT Supply Chain Risk Management.