As many industries transition to alternative working arrangements in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, certain sectors and functions essential to the nation’s public health, safety, and community well-being must continue to operate. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently released an advisory initial list of “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers.”

The financial services industry is listed as essential and includes:

• Workers who are needed to process and maintain systems for processing financial transactions and services (e.g., payment, clearing, and settlement; wholesale funding; insurance services; and capital markets activities)
• Workers who are needed to provide consumer access to banking and lending services, including ATMs, and to move currency and payments (e.g., armored cash carriers)
• Workers who support financial operations, such as those staffing data and security operations centers

CISA recognizes that state, local, tribal, and territorial governments are ultimately in charge of implementing and executing response activities in communities under their jurisdiction, while the federal government is in a supporting role. As state and local communities consider COVID-19-related restrictions, CISA is offering this list to assist prioritizing activities related to continuity of operations and incident response, including the appropriate movement of critical infrastructure workers within and between jurisdictions.