Critical Infrastructure and Resilience Month Highlights Planning and Recovery Resources
CISA resources help organizations assess risks, test response plans and prepare essential services for disruptions.
- By Chelsey Arries
- Nov 02, 2026
November’s Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month highlights preparations that infrastructure owners and operators can make to maintain essential services and recover from disruptions.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is emphasizing four priorities: identifying essential systems and their dependencies, determining the most consequential risks, developing practical response plans and evaluating improvements.
CISA’s monthlong campaign brings together guidance and resources addressing physical security, cybersecurity and service continuity. It also recognizes the personnel responsible for keeping infrastructure operating during emergencies.
Resources for Planning and Exercises
The agency’s observance toolkit directs organizations to existing resources for assessing vulnerabilities, preparing for incidents and strengthening recovery capabilities.
Among them is the Infrastructure Resilience Planning Framework, which supports efforts to identify essential infrastructure, evaluate risks and develop resilience measures.
The toolkit also points to customizable exercise materials covering physical threats, ransomware and incidents involving industrial control systems. Organizations can use the scenarios and discussion questions to examine their plans and response procedures.
For cybersecurity, CISA identifies its Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals as voluntary guidance for prioritizing security investments.
Putting Preparedness into Practice
CISA recommends that organizations determine how long customers can tolerate service interruptions, develop recovery plans around those limits and test their ability to restore operations.
The toolkit also encourages organizations to incorporate cybersecurity into facility protection and operational planning. Recommendations include addressing infrastructure weaknesses, strengthening supply chains and using lessons from exercises and actual incidents to revise preparations.
Graphics and suggested messaging are available for organizations conducting outreach during the observance. The materials can support communication with employees, customers and community partners about infrastructure risks and preparedness efforts.
About the Author
Chelsey Arries is assistant editor of Security Today, Campus Security Today, Occupational Health & Safety and Environmental Protection Online.