Countermeasures development in the physical security design process: an anti-terrorist perspective

The practice of terrorism has grown more prevalent and far more sophisticated during the past several decades, It has become one of the primary means used by disaffected groups to attempt to so compiish their political objectives. High value govern ment and private assets present particularly attrac tive targets for a variety of these sophisticated threats. Likewise, soaring manpower costs and the insider threat dictate the increasing need to apply efficient combinations of state-of-the-art physical security countermeasures at critical locations to reduce vulnerability of assets and provide for protection in-depth. The user must be provided with a workable tool to assist in the planning and design of appro priate physical security countermeasures against terrorist and other attacks. The most effective design model examines assets from both the user's and the potential aggressors' perspective. The process begins with the selection of assets deemed critical. The process then proceeds through the determination of potential aggressor characteristics, attractiveness of assets to various aggressors and their potential at tack modes, and concludes with threat/vulnerability analysis and the identification of appropriate counter measures. Included within this Countermeasures Development Process is an assessment of existing protec tive measures and consideration of constraints on the design solution. This paper approaches the security Countermeasures Development Process from the user's perspective and identifies key inputs and decision points. Particular emphasis is placed upon terrorist threat dynamics and countermeasures development in the context of the need to develop a fully integrated physical security system that provides diversity, re dundancy and collective resource management, and assures protection in-depth of critical assets.