The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Infrastructure Protection has an online course it has devised for service providers to learn about its National Infrastructure Protection Plan.

DHS said service providers “are key players in an industry whose facilities and systems are potentially at risk in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack.”

Introduction to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) (IS-860) is a Web-based course developed jointly by the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute. It provides an orientation regarding the key concepts of the NIPP and is designed to meet the training needs of a wide range of government and private sector security partners involved in implementing infrastructure protection programs.

The course addresses the importance of protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure and key resources, and provides an overview of many of the key concepts of the NIPP, including: the risk management framework, the partnership model designed to facilitate coordination and cooperation between infrastructure owners and operators and the government, the networked approach to information-sharing, and the new risk-based approach to resource allocation. It describes the 17 sector-specific plans that address the particular needs of each sector, including the Communications Sector, and it underscores the opportunities and benefits of participation.

The course is available free of charge and may be accessed through the EMI Independent Study Web site. Additional information on the NIPP, the SSPs, and other efforts to protect the nation’s CI/KR is available on the NIPP Web site.