Course Overview Ensuring the security and resilience of the critical infrastructure of the United States is essential to the Nation's security, public health and safety, economic vitality, and way of life. The purpose of this course is to present an overview of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP). The NIPP provides the unifying structure for the integration of existing and future critical infrastructure security and resilience efforts into a single national program. Course Objectives: -Describe NIPP 2013 key concepts across the entire critical infrastructure community - including private sector and government at all levels. -Describe the core tenets and the values and assumptions considered when planning for critical infrastructure security and resilience. -Identify activities critical partners may implement to achieve national goals aimed at enhancing critical infrastructure security and resilience put forward in the NIPP 2013 Call to Action. -Describe ways to apply these concepts to support security and resilience within your community or area of responsibility. Primary Audience The course is intended for DHS and other Federal staff responsible for implementing the NIPP, and Tribal, State, local and private sector emergency management professionals.

Protecting the critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR) of the United States is essential to the Nation's security, public health and safety, economic vitality, and way of life. Attacks on CI/KR could significantly disrupt the functioning of government and business alike and produce cascading effects far beyond the targeted sector and physical location of the incident. Direct terrorist attacks and natural, manmade, or technological hazards could produce catastrophic losses in terms of human casualties, property destruction, and economic effects, as well as profound damage to public morale and confidence. Attacks using components of the Nation's CI/KR as weapons of mass destruction could have even more devastating physical and psychological consequences. The overarching goal of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) is as follows: Build a safer, more secure, and more resilient America by enhancing protection of the Nation's CI/KR to prevent, deter, neutralize, or mitigate the effects of deliberate efforts by terrorists to destroy, incapacitate, or exploit them; and to strengthen national preparedness, timely response, and rapid recovery in the event of an attack, natural disaster, or other emergency. The NIPP provides the unifying structure for the integration of existing and future CI/KR protection efforts into a single national program to achieve this goal. The NIPP framework will enable the prioritization of protection initiatives and investments across sectors to ensure that government and private sector resources are applied where they offer the most benefit for mitigating risk by lessening vulnerabilities, deterring threats, and minimizing the consequences of terrorist attacks and other manmade and natural disasters. The NIPP risk management framework recognizes and builds on existing protective programs and initiatives.

According to the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS), there are thousands of facilities in the U.S. that if destroyed by a disaster could cause casualties, econ. losses, or disruptions to national security. DHS issued the Nat. Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) in June 2006 to provide the approach for integrating the nation's critical infrastructure and key resources. This report studied DHS's Jan. 2009 revisions to the NIPP in light of a debate over whether DHS has emphasized protection rather than resilience. The report discusses: (1) how the 2009 NIPP changed compared to the 2006 NIPP; and (2) how DHS addressed resiliency as part of their planning efforts. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find report.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there are thousands of facilities in the United States that if destroyed by a disaster could cause casualties, economic losses, or disruptions to national security. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 gave DHS responsibility for leading and coordinating the nation's effort to protect critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR). Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD-7) defined responsibilities for DHS and certain federal agencies, known as sector-specific agencies (SSAs), that represent 18 industry sectors, such as energy. In accordance with the Homeland Security Act and HSPD-7, DHS issued the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) in June 2006 to provide the approach for integrating the nation's CIKR. GAO was asked to study DHS's January 2009 revisions to the NIPP in light of a debate over whether DHS has emphasized protection, to deter threats, mitigate vulnerabilities, or minimize the consequences of disasters, rather than resilience, to resist, absorb, or successfully adapt, respond to, or recover from disasters. This report discusses (1) how the 2009 NIPP changed compared to the 2006 NIPP and (2) how DHS and SSAs addressed resiliency as part of their planning efforts. GAO compared the 2006 and 2009 NIPPs, analyzed documents, including NIPP Implementation Guides and sector- specific plans, and interviewed DHS and SSA officials from all 18 sectors about their process to identify potential revisions to the NIPP and address resiliency.

Critical Infrastructure Protection: Update to National Infrastructure Protection Plan Includes Increased Emphasis on Risk Management and Resilience

The National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) provides the unifying structure for the integration Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CI/KR) protection efforts into a single national program. The NIPP provides an overall framework for integrating programs and activities that are underway in the various sectors, as well as new and developing CI/KR protection efforts. The NIPP includes 17 sector-specific plans (SSPs) that detail the application of the overall risk management framework to each specific sector. Each SSP describes a collaborative effort between the private sector; State, local and tribal governments; nongovernmental organizations; and the Federal Government. This collaboration will result in the prioritization of protection initiatives and investments within and across sectors to ensure that resources can be applied where they contribute the most to risk mitigation by lowering vulnerabilities, deterring threats, and minimizing the consequences of attacks and other incidents.

Risk in the 21st century results from a complex mix of manmade and naturally occurring threats and hazards, including terrorist attacks, accidents, natural disasters, and other emergencies. Within this context, our critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) may be directly exposed to the events themselves or indirectly exposed as a result of the dependencies and interdependencies among CIKR. Within the CIKR protection mission area, national priorities must include preventing catastrophic loss of life and managing cascading, disruptive impacts on the U.S. and global economies across multiple threat scenarios. Achieving this goal requires a strategy that appropriately balances resiliency – a traditional American strength in adverse times – with focused, risk-informed prevention, protection, and preparedness activities so that we can manage and reduce the most serious risks that we face. These concepts represent the pillars of our National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) and its 18 supporting Sector-Specific Plans (SSPs). The plans are carried out in practice by an integrated network of Federal departments and agencies, State and local government agencies, private sector entities, and a growing number of regional consortia – all operating together within a largely voluntary CIKR protection framework. This multidimensional public-private sector partnership is the key to success in this inherently complex mission area. Building this partnership under the NIPP has been a major accomplishment to date and has facilitated closer cooperation and a trusted relationship in and across the 18 CIKR sectors. Integrating multi-jurisdictional and multi-sector authorities, capabilities, and resources is a unified but flexible approach that can also be tailored to specific sector and regional risk landscapes and operating environments is the path to successfully enhancing our Nation's CIKR protection. The NIPP meets the requirements that the President set for in Homeland Security Directive 7 (HSPD-7), Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization, and Protection, and provides the overarching approach for integrating the Nation's many CIKR protection initiatives into a single national effort. It set for a comprehensive risk management framework and clearly defined roles and responsibilities for the Department of Homeland Security; Federal Sector-Specific Agencies; and other Federal, State, regional, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners implementing the NIPP.

The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for coordinating a national protection strategy including formation of government & private sector councils as a collaborating tool. The councils, among other things, are to identify their most critical assets, assess the risks they face, & identify protective measures, in sector-specific plans that comply with DHS¿s National Infrastructure Protection Plan. This testimony addresses: (1) the extent to which these councils have been established; (2) key facilitating factors & challenges affecting the formation of the council; (3) key facilitating factors & challenges encountered in developing sector plans; & (4) the status of DHS¿s efforts to fulfill key cybersecurity responsibilities. Charts & tables.