The mission of The National Institute For Hometown Security is to discover, develop and support the deployment of solutions that enhance the protection and resilience of community-based critical infrastructure.

NIHS fulfills this mission by providing operations support for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Technology Development & Deployment Program (TDDP). TDDP is an on-going program dedicated to critical infrastructure protection and resilience. The program is charged with (1) developing new technologies and devices through research by qualified technical teams and (2) facilitating the successful deployment of the technologies. TDDP is the outgrowth of a earlier program and process designed by NIHS.

The NIHS area of interest is community-based critical infrastructure. The U. S. Department of Homeland Security defines “critical infrastructure” as systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters. NIHS is dedicated to community-based critical infrastructure because most of this infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector. The infrastructure is not concentrated in one locale, but rather it is found throughout the nation, in metropolitan centers, in mid-size cities and in small towns or unincorporated villages.

The NIPP Security and Resilience Challenge is managed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in partnership with the National Institute for Hometown Security.