to mimic the effects of a pandemic flu, even though two-thirds of the participants claimed to have business continuity plans in place, barely half reported that their plan was moderately effective. Critical infrastructure protection requires the development of a national capability to identify and monitor the critical elements and to determine when and if the elements are under attack or are the victim of destructive natural occurrences. CIP is important because it is the link between risk management and infrastructure assurance. It provides the capability needed to eliminate potential vulnerabilities in the critical infrastructure. CIP practitioners determine vulnerabilities and analyze alternatives in order to prepare for incidents. They focus on improving the capability to detect and warn of impending attacks on, and system failures within, the critical elements of the national infrastructure. Organization and structure PDD-63 mandated the formation of a national structure for critical infrastructure protection. To accomplish this one of the primary actions was to produce a National Infrastructure Assurance Plan, or NIAP, later renamed National Infrastructure Protection Plan or NIPP. The different entities of the national CIP structure work together as a partnership between the government and the public sectors. Each department and agency of the federal government is responsible for protecting its portion of the government's critical infrastructure. In addition, there are grants made available through the Department of Homeland Security for municipal and private entities to use for CIP and security purposes. These include grants for emergency management, water security training, rail, transit and port security, metropolitan medical response, LEA terrorism prevention programs and the Urban Areas Security Initiative. PDD-63 identified certain functions related to critical infrastructure protection that must be performed chiefly by the federal government. These are national defense, foreign affairs, intelligence, and law enforcement. Each lead agency for these special functions appoints a senior official to serve as a functional coordinator for the federal government. In 2008 a mobile PDA-based Vulnerability Assessment Security Survey Tool (VASST) was introduced to speed physical security assessment of critical infrastructure by law enforcement to meet compliance requirements of PDD-63. National Infrastructure Assurance Plan / National Infrastructure Protection Plan For each of the identified major sectors of the critical infrastructure, the federal government appointed a Sector Liaison Official from a designated Lead Agency. A private sector counterpart, a Sector Coordinator, was also identified. Together, the two sector representatives, one federal government and one corporate, were responsible for