Critical infrastructure protection
The importance of critical infrastructure
Critical infrastructure comprises service and supply systems that are essential to the economy or the livelihood of the population (power supply, medical care, telecommunications, etc.). This includes buildings, facilities and anything required for the provision of goods and services (IT systems, networks, etc.).
Critical infrastructure protection aims to improve resilience (i.e. robustness, adaptability and regenerative capacity) in order to prevent serious disruptions or mitigate their impact. Measures to protect critical infrastructure can therefore include strengthening IT systems, organising a proxy system for critical workers, and defining minimum power supply requirements via a supervisory authority.
National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure Protection
The Federal Council adopted the National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) on 16 June 2023. It builds on the two previous CIP strategies published in 2012 and 2017, respectively.
Switzerland’s new national CIP strategy defines the overriding goals and principles of action for all parties involved. The strategy also identifies eight measures to improve the country’s resilience with regard to its critical infrastructure. For example, the responsible supervisory and regulatory authorities have been tasked with examining all sectors for any significant risk of major supply disruption, as well as taking measures to mitigate this. A further measure involves compiling an inventory, to be updated periodically, of the main objects and operators in Switzerland. These can include important hubs for communication, the power supply, food distribution and the provision of medicines.
Cooperation between stakeholders
The implementation of the national CIP strategy is closely monitored by the Federal Council’s Energy, Environment and Infrastructure delegation. The Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP) is responsible for coordinating the strategy’s implementation, which will be carried out in close cooperation with the operators of critical infrastructure, supervisory and regulatory authorities in various sectors, and the cantons. Although the CIP strategy currently applies indefinitely, the FOCP will assess every four years whether an update is required.
Critical Infrastructures
The list of critical infrastructures (CI) consists of nine sectors, divided into 27 sub-sectors, or branches. For example, the sector ‘Energy’ is made up of the sub-sectors ‘power supply’, ‘oil supply’, ‘gas supply’ and ‘district and process heating’. In general, each individual element (operating companies, IT systems, facilities, buildings, etc.) providing services in one of the 27 sub-sectors is considered part of the critical infrastructure, regardless of its criticality. The criticality of an infrastructure refers to its relative importance in terms of the consequences that its failure would have on the population and its vital resources. Criticality depends on the particular level of perspective: for example, some critical infrastructures at local or communal level may have a high level of criticality (e.g. a transformer station in the distribution grid), while others have a high level of criticality at national or even international level (e.g. central control systems in the transmission network).
Publications CIP
Reports and studies on Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Further information
Contact
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CH - 3003 Bern