About the Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC)

The Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC) is the Department's infrastructure-intelligence fusion center, incorporating analysts from the Office of Infrastructure Protection and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. HITRAC creates actionable risk-informed analysis for federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, private sector, and international partners.

The Office of Infrastructure Protection oversees HITRAC's risk analysis component, including:

• Critical infrastructure, regional, and cyber threat analysis.
• Critical infrastructure prioritization.
• Analytic support to state and local partners.
• Infrastructure modeling and simulation.

More about infrastructure protection and infrastructure analysis and strategy.

Infrastructure Threat Analysis

HITRAC produces intelligence-based reports that:

• Support constituents' threat-mitigation strategies and investment decisions.
• Inform constituents of physical and cyber threats against the nation's critical infrastructure and all levels of government and critical infrastructure sectors.
• Educate constituents on adversary tactics and use of weapons and explosives.

HITRAC threat analysis focuses mainly on regional, critical infrastructure, cyber, and explosives threats.

• Regional Threat Analysis. HITRAC analyzes cross-sector and cross-state threats to critical infrastructure, develops tailored threat assessments with state and local homeland security officials, and conducts state and local analytic outreach on behalf of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Regional threat analysis support includes:
  • State Critical Infrastructure Threat Assessments. Regional threats to state and local partners are identified, including Joint Special Event Threat Assessments.
  • Weekly Threat Teleconferences. Weekly teleconferences with states include specific threat briefings prepared by Department and state representatives.
  • Regional Threat Conferences. Conference agendas include topics of interest to the specific region as well as general interest information. Conferences facilitate coordination among federal, state, and local analysts.
  • Threat Briefing Support. Classified and unclassified threat briefings are presented to state, local, and private sector officials as requested.
• Critical Infrastructure Threat Analysis. HITRAC analyzes threats to specific critical infrastructure sectors, such as Transportation, Energy, Commercial Facilities, etc.
• Cyber Threat Analysis. HITRAC analyzes cyber threats to critical infrastructure; develops tailored cyber threat assessments with federal, state, local, and tribal officials; conducts cyber analytic outreach on behalf of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis; and produces cyber-related requirements on behalf of DHS. Products generated by these analyses include:
  • Cyber-related Homeland Intelligence Reports.
  • Cyber Monitor.
  • Homeland Security Cyber Threat Report.
  • Drafting or contributing to Intelligence Community Bulletins.
  • Cyber Threat Briefing.
• Explosives Threat Analysis. HITRAC experts educate constituents on adversary tactics and use of explosives and other weapons, including homemade explosives. They also analyze trends in explosives production and employment.

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Infrastructure Risk Analysis

HITRAC produces risk-informed analytic products that provide decisionmakers charged with protecting critical infrastructure and key resources with a common understanding of the risks facing the country.

The center also provides the tools, methodologies, and approaches to translate that shared understanding into actionable risk mitigation strategies.

In addition to its incident management capabilities, HITRAC is responsible for a number of steady-state (everyday or noncrisis) programs.

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HITRAC Steady-State Programs

HITRAC analyzes current and future risks to the nation's infrastructure through its Risk Analysis Framework, with emphasis on the importance of federal, state and local, and private sector partners.

HITRAC's steady-state programs include:

•  National Infrastructure Risk Analysis Program (NIRAP). Conducts risk-informed analysis to help decision makers develop sound risk management strategies. NIRAP develops the annual National Risk Profile and issue-specific assessments for the homeland security community.
• Long Range Planning and Analysis Program. Designed to fill gaps in the Department's strategic planning and decisionmaking activities by assessing current and future trends and identifying opportunities to shape the future risk environment.
• Infrastructure Risk Analysis Partnership Program. Provides assistance in building the risk analysis and planning capabilities of state and local partners and infrastructure risk analysis information to all 56 states and territories through the Critical Infrastructure Protection Leaders Forum and quarterly newsletters on the Homeland Security Information Network. Also conducts one-on-one risk analysis with interested state and local partners.
• National Critical Infrastructure Prioritization Program. Supports steady-state and incident-management prioritization of critical infrastructure through the Tier 1 and Tier 2 process (domestic infrastructure) and the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative (international infrastructure).
• Critical Infrastructure Red Team. Combines operational studies and current intelligence on terrorist capabilities to provide better insights into terrorist threats to critical infrastructure and critical infrastructure vulnerabilities to these threats.
• Risk Development Program. Manages applied research to advance the state of homeland security risk analysis using transparent and flexible approaches. Provides technical leadership for risk analysis and management efforts.
• National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC). Congressionally mandated program that combines the unique advanced analytic capabilities of Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories to improve the nation's understanding of infrastructure disruptions, and to foster the development of mitigation strategies. Learn more about NISAC.

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HITRAC Incident Management Capabilities

During incidents, HITRAC mobilizes its Incident Risk Analysis Cell, which taps into the center's steady-state programs and capabilities to provide immediate analytical support to decisionmakers in real time during the crisis. Assistance includes risk analysis, threat analysis, and consequence modeling conducted by NISAC.

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Contact

For more information, please contact risk@hq.dhs.gov.

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