National Protection and Programs Directorate - Overview

Overview

NPPD is the lead component of the United States Department of Homeland Security in the protection of the Nation’s physical and cyber critical infrastructure and key resources from terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other catastrophic incidents. NPPD collaborates and shares information with Federal, State, local, tribal, international, and private-sector partners.

NPPD has three major program activities:

• Cyber Security and Communications – Collaborates with public, private, and international partners to ensure the security and continuity of the Nation’s cyber and communications infrastructures in the event of terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and catastrophic incidents. Additionally, Cyber Security and Communications protects and strengthens the reliability, survivability, and interoperability of the Nation’s communications capabilities, including those utilized during emergencies, at the Federal, State, local, and tribal levels. Responsible for overseeing the National Cyber Security Division.
• Infrastructure Protection – Leads coordinated efforts for reducing risk to the Nation’s physical critical infrastructure and key resources from terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other catastrophic incidents by integrating and disseminating critical infrastructure and key resources threat, consequence, and vulnerability information; developing risk mitigation strategies; and overseeing the developing and implementation of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP). These efforts help to ensure that essential Government missions, public services, and economic functions are maintained. IP also ensures that critical infrastructure and key resources elements are not exploited for use as weapons of mass destruction against people or institutions through regulatory initiatives such as its Ammonium Nitrate and Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) programs.
• Federal Protective Service – Leads the Department’s comprehensive security and law enforcement services for mitigating risk to more than 9,000 Federal facilities and their 1.1 million occupants nationwide. Operational activities include law enforcement response; risk assessments of Federal facilities to determine, recommend, and install appropriate risk mitigation measures; and oversight of between 12,000 and 15,000 armed contract protective security officers, depending on customer requirements. Further, personnel conduct criminal investigations, provide regular security awareness training to stakeholders, and provide support to major events.
• United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program - US-VISIT supports the Department of Homeland Security's responsibility to protect the nation by providing biometric identification services that help federal, state, and local government decision makers accurately identify the people they encounter and determine whether those people pose a risk to the United States. US-VISIT supplies the technology for collecting and storing biometric data, provides analysis, updates its watchlist, and ensures the integrity of the data.