Powering Strong Communities
Security

Physical Security Resources

Association Publications

The American Public Power Association has a suite of resources to help in hardening a utility's physical security.

Physical Security Essentials: A Public Power Primer, updated in 2024, addresses physical security protective measures and describes leading practices that can help mitigate risks. This publication is available through the product store. The physical security checklist associated with this publication can be accessed here.

The All-Hazards Guidebook is intended to help public power utilities, joint action agencies, state associations, and other industry representatives in the development or continuous improvement of emergency preparedness programs and all-hazards planning efforts. This publication is available as a free download.

The Public Power Tabletop Exercise in a Box has everything you need to conduct a tabletop exercise, including guidance on preparing for the exercise, facilitating the exercise, and conducting a post-exercise debrief. This publication is available as a free download through the product store.

Disaster Planning

APPA also has a number of resources available for disaster planning and response scenarios. These resources are available at the Disaster Planning and Response page.

Physical Security Videos

The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has also created a number of videos and resources on the topic of physical security.

This 30-minute video provides information on how to mitigate the risk from insiders that may seek to cause harm to their organization. It provides information on how to identify potential insider threats and develop a mitigation strategy to protect assets and employees from harm.

This webpage and 96-minute video provide information on how to develop an Emergency Action Plan both as an individual and for use in a larger organization. 

This page provides resources on how to improve the security of soft targets and crowded places like sporting venues, retail centers, schools, and transportation centers.

This pamphlet provides information on potential indicators of an imminent vehicle ramming attack as well as how to physically protect sites to reduce the danger posed by such threats.

This 11-minute video outlines potential behavioral indicators that may indicate a potential turn towards violence. 

This page provides general information on how to be more alert for security threats and respond in the case of suspected or real security threats.

CISA Services Catalog

CISA has released a services catalog to provide a single resource highlighting all of the services CISA offers to governments, non-profits, academia, private industry, and other stakeholders. This publication will be regularly updated and is intended to give users a sense of how cybersecurity, infrastructure security, and emergency communications intersect. The CISA Services Catalog can be accessed here:

This publication is designed to be downloaded and viewed in a desktop environment and may not function properly on a mobile device or built-in browser PDF viewer.

More information

Email us to ask about other ways we can support your security efforts and watch this page for more resources.

A variety of resources related to cybersecurity can be found here.