National Infrastructure Priority Status: Benefit, Impact, and Why It Matters

The United States is in the midst of a generational investment in the nation’s infrastructure. This modernization effort (spanning energy, transportation, water, and digital systems) arrives alongside an era of strategic competition in which nation-state actors actively target American critical infrastructure. 

Policy response has prompted the federal government to reexamine how it protects the assets and systems that underpin national security, economic prosperity, and public health. Read on as we detail how the US federal government identifies and prioritizes critical infrastructure and what the evolving policy framework means for agencies. 

The Current Policy Framework

The foundation of infrastructure prioritization in the United States traces back to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7, issued in 2003. It established the national policy to identify and protect critical infrastructure from terrorist attacks. Over the past two decades, the framework has evolved to address a far broader threat landscape. Presidential Policy Directive 21, issued in 2013, defined the 16 critical infrastructure sectors and assigned a Sector-Specific Agency to each. As a result, this model affirmed the dual importance of sector expertise and federal coordination.

On April 30, 2024, the most significant overhaul in a decade came with the issuance of National Security Memorandum 22. NSM-22 set forth a revised framework for federal agency roles and responsibilities; it explicitly recognized that our nation faces an era of strategic competition with nation-state actors who target American critical infrastructure. Additionally, the memorandum introduced mandatory minimum cybersecurity requirements for critical infrastructure operators (moving beyond voluntary standards). It also directed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to identify Systemically Important Entities (SIEs) whose disruption would have outsized consequences for national security.

In March 2025, Executive Order 14239, Achieving Efficiency Through State and Local Preparedness, shifted national critical infrastructure policy from an “all-hazards” approach to a risk-informed model, prioritizing resilience and action over mere information sharing. In addition, the order directed the development of a National Risk Register to identify, describe, and measure risks to national infrastructure and guide federal spending and planning.

Water treatment factories fall within the nation’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors, thus protected by federal policies aimed at preventing terrorist attacks.

The 16 Critical Infrastructure Sectors

The 16 sectors reflect the complexity and interdependence of modern infrastructure. 

1. Chemical
2. Commercial facilities 
3. Communications 
4. Critical manufacturing
5. Dams
6. Defense industrial base
7. Emergency services
8. Energy
9. Financial services
10. Food and agriculture
11. Government facilities
12. Healthcare and public health
13. Information technology
14. Nuclear reactors, materials, and waste
15. Transportation systems
16. Water and wastewater systems

Each sector operates under a designated federal department or agency and is responsible for coordinating risk management activities and developing sector-specific protection plans.

Systemically Important Entities: A New Priority Tier

Within these 16 sectors, not all entities carry equal weight. The concept of Systemically Important Entities (SIEs)—first recommended by the bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission and codified in NSM-22—creates a new priority tier. It covers organizations whose disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on national security, national economic security, or national public health or safety.

CISA, through its National Risk Management Center, has been tasked with developing and maintaining a non-public list of SIEs. A RAND Corporation report published in November 2023 provided the methodological foundation: Entities are identified by their potential to affect National Critical Functions and prioritized by objective measures of size and interconnectedness. 

Designated SIEs receive priority access to risk mitigation information and operational resources from CISA, placing them at the front of the line for federal support during crisis response.

What Priority Status Means for Owners and Operators

Organizations operating within the critical infrastructure sectors, such as this high voltage substation, must continually update their risk management plans in coordination with CISA.

For organizations operating within any of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, the evolving priority framework carries concrete operational implications. Under NSM-22, sector risk management agencies were required to develop new risk management plans in coordination with CISA. The 2024-2025 national critical infrastructure risk management cycle established specific priorities for guiding shared efforts across government and the private sector. 

As CISA continues refining the SIE designation process, entities determined to be systemically important will face heightened cybersecurity requirements, deeper information-sharing obligations, and greater scrutiny of their supply chain security practices.

The National Resilience Strategy articulates the priorities, means, and ways to advance national resilience. It mandates review and revision at least every four years. This creates an ongoing cycle of assessment, prioritization, and investment that will shape infrastructure protection for decades.

The Technology Imperative

Translating policy into effective protection requires technology purposely built for critical infrastructure environments. Operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) present fundamentally different security challenges from enterprise IT networks. They demand solutions that are capable of operating in physically constrained environments without disrupting essential processes.

At SealingTech, our AegisEdge MicroServers are specifically designed for OT and ICS environments. Meeting stringent SWaP-C requirements, the US 10 boasts 10 cores of processing providing customers more flexibility, power, and value in a portable compact solution. The MS 100 delivers cutting-edge, out-of-band management (OOBM) in a versatile, ultra-compact solution. It fits in the palm of your hand and can be hidden anywhere to monitor your entire network traffic. 

Since 2018, we’ve also delivered more than 500 Cyber-Fly-Away Kits to defense and intelligence customers, thus supporting incident response and threat hunting operations that directly reinforce critical infrastructure resilience.

As the national infrastructure priority framework continues to mature, the gap between policy ambition and operational capability will define which entities in the United States are truly protected.