Intentional Threats Research Articles

Regional cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region—recommendations to foster a joint understanding and take action against common risks and threats

It is in our common interest to protect and promote democracy, security, and the rule of law in the Baltic Sea Region. These are among the fundamental conditions for a fair and prosperous social and economic development. It is also in our common interest to repel the threats against our civil security. National and international security today is not just a question of an absence of military threats, but to a growing extent a transnational presence of stable democratic, political, economic, social, and infrastructural conditions. The threats against society are manifold: natural disasters, environmental degradation, political, social and infrastructural vulnerabilities, organized crime, corruption, poverty, welfare gaps, social marginalization, uneven living conditions, ideological fanaticism, etc. The threat of a confrontation with military means has all but vanished, although it has not disappeared entirely. Take organized crime as an example: Organized crime is growing and eating its way into society’s fabric. It is evident in the detestable trafficking in human beings, in the narcotics trade, in the recurrent corruption scandals, and in many other ways. Organized crime undermines the security and safety of the citizens. It corrodes the legal and administrative foundation of society. It distorts the free function of the market mechanisms. It corrupts politics. Organized crime is, therefore, a fundamental threat against freedom and democracy. Civil security requires a comprehensive assessment of threats and risks, which includes everything from nonintentional to intentional threats. It is also a matter of developing and adapting new means of prevention and response, in which the combined resources of society are prepared for various scenarios. Not least, civil security is a question of safeguarding the principles, functions, and institutions of the open and democratic society, while concurrently strengthening the security and Asia Eur J (2010) 8:267–269 DOI 10.1007/s10308-010-0267-6

The impacts of adaptive attacking and defending strategies on mitigation of intentional threats

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on resource allocation and information disclosure policy for defending multiple targets against intentional attacks. The intentional attacks, like terrorism events, probably cause great losses and fatalities. Attackers and defenders usually make decisions based on incomplete information. Adaptive attacking and defending strategies are considered, to study how both sides make more effective decisions according to previous fights.Design/methodology/approachA stochastic game‐theoretic approach is proposed for modeling attacker‐defender conflicts. Attackers and defenders are supposed both to be strategic decision makers and partially aware of adversary's information. Adaptive strategies are compared with different inflexible strategies in a fortification‐patrol problem, where the fortification affects the security vulnerability of targets and the patrol indicates the defensive signal.FindingsThe result shows that the intentional risk would be elevated by adaptive attack strategies. An inflexible defending strategy probably fails when facing uncertainties of adversary. It is shown that the optimal response of defenders is to adjust defending strategies by learning from previous games and assessing behaviors of adversaries to minimize the expected loss.Originality/valueThis paper explores how adaptive strategies affect attacker‐defender conflicts. The key issue is defense allocation and information disclosure policy for mitigation of intentional threats. Attackers and defenders can adjust their strategies by learning from previous fights, and the strategic adjustment of both sides may be asynchronous.

Detecting threat-related intentional actions of others: Effects of image quality, response mode, and target cuing on vigilance.

Three experiments examined the vigilance performance of participants watching videos depicting intentional actions of an individual's hand reaching for and grasping an object--involving transporting or using either a gun or a hairdryer--in order to detect infrequent threat-related actions. Participants indicated detection of target actions either manually or by withholding response. They also rated their subjective mental workload before and after each vigilance task. Irrespective of response mode, the detection rate of intentional threats declined over time on task and subjective workload increased, but only under visually degraded viewing conditions. This vigilance decrement was attenuated by temporal cues that were 75% valid in predicting a subsequent target action and eliminated with 100% valid cues. The findings indicate that detection of biological motion targets, and threat-related intentional actions in particular, although not attention sensitive under normal viewing conditions, is subject to vigilance decrement under degraded viewing conditions. The results are compatible with the view that the decrement in detecting threat-related intentional actions reflects increasing failure of attention allocation processes over time.

Model-Based Approaches for Railway Safety, Reliability and Security: The Experience of Ansaldo STS

In order to master the increasing complexity of modern railway control systems, novel model-based approaches are needed to allow engineers to evaluate such systems against strict system-level dependability requirements. In this talk, we provide an overview of the experience of Ansaldo STS in using model-based approaches for railway safety, reliability and security. Dependability requires assessment both at the software and at the hardware levels. At the software level, models have proven useful to support both static and dynamic functional analyses in order to discover systematic faults in the code. At the hardware level, we have experimented that compositional multi-formalism modeling approaches well suit the evaluation of system safety and reliability against random faults. The use of models has allowed engineers to improve both the effectiveness and the efficiency of system verification. Views of the Unified Modeling Language have been adopted to perform informal or semi-formal analyses, while Stochastic Petri Nets, (Repairable) Fault Trees, Continuous Time Markov Chains and Bayesian Networks have been employed for formal and quantitative analyses. Analytical risk and vulnerability models have also been experimented for security assessment with respect to intentional threats and natural hazards. Due to the wide range of possible applications, we are currently studying in depth both the theoretical and the technological issues related to the multi-paradigm dependability modeling using appropriate frameworks Francesco Flammini got with honours his laurea (July 2003) and doctorate (December 2006) degrees in Computer Engineering from the University Federico II of Naples. Since October 2003 to January 2007, he has worked in Ansaldo STS as a Software/RAMS Engineer in the Verification & Validation unit, specializing in model-based dependability evaluation and testing of real-time control systems. During these years, he has been involved in several ERTMS/ETCS (European Railway Traffic Management System / European Train Control System) projects. Since February 2007, he has worked on the protection of transportation infrastructures against external threats, specializing in risk assessment and design of security management systems. In 2006/2007 he has been an Adjunct Professor of Software Engineering at the Second University of Naples. He currently teaches Computer Science at the University “Federico II” of Naples and serves as the

Purdue University Graduate Certificate Program in Veterinary Homeland Security

Our nation lacks a critical mass of professionals trained to prevent and respond to food- and animal-related emergencies. Training veterinarians provides an immediate means of addressing this shortage of experts. Achievement of critical mass to effectively address animal-related emergencies is expedited by concurrent training of professionals and graduate students in related areas. Purdue University offers a Web-based Graduate Certificate in Veterinary Homeland Security to address this special area of need. The program is a collaborative effort among the Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine, the Purdue Homeland Security Institute, the Indiana State Board of Animal Health, the Indiana State Police, and others with the overall goal of increasing capacity and preparedness to manage animal-related emergencies. Individuals with expertise in veterinary medicine, public health, animal science, or homeland security are encouraged to participate. The Web-based system allows courses to be delivered efficiently and effectively around the world and allows participants to continue their graduate education while maintaining full-time jobs. Participants enhance their understanding of natural and intentional threats to animal health, strengthen their skills in managing animal-health emergencies, and develop problem-solving expertise to become effective members of animal emergency response teams and of their communities. Students receive graduate credit from Purdue University that can be used toward the certificate and toward an advanced graduate degree. Currently, 70 participants from 28 states; Washington, DC; Singapore; and Bermuda are enrolled.

Protecting the functionality of airports during disaster responses: Humanitarian responses to terrorism, war, civil war, and riots

The response to almost any disaster has major roles for airports that carry out many or all the functions in an incident management system or act as key assets (emergency support functions). Disaster response itself stresses airports and should require protective measures that may be policy, organizational, operational, physical, or defensive. If the response is humanitarian relief during an intentional disaster such as terrorism, war, civil war, or riot, defensive protective measures become critical to airport functionality, continuity of business, and continuity of operations. This article examines 18 airports for threats to functionality and appropriate, effective defensive measures against these threats. In a disaster, an airport can substitute for almost anything else, but nothing else can substitute for an airport. This truism becomes particularly acute when the operational stresses of humanitarian relief and intentional threats coincide at an airport.

Effects of intentional threats to power substation control systems

Power station control and management systems represent key elements for guaranteeing the security of the power grid infrastructure. Intrinsically conceived to support the continuous provision of power in secure conditions, those systems today make intensive use of information and communication systems and are therefore exposed to related accidental and intentional cyber threats. This paper describes a simulation of cyber attacks conducted in the CESI RICERCA laboratory testbed on a prototypical substation control infrastructure with the purpose of testing their feasibility and illustrating their impact on the control system services. A set of attack scenarios targeting several subsystems has been experimented, with different simulated threat motivations and different degrees of impact on the global substation service. The paper reports some considerations about the consequences of the implemented attacks, focusing on different facets of the problem, in an effort to elucidate the full significance of the potential cyber threats.

Protection of simple series and parallel systems with components of different values

We apply game theory, optimization, and reliability analysis to identify optimal defenses against intentional threats to system reliability. The goals are to identify optimal strategies for allocating resources among possible defensive investments, and to develop qualitative guidelines that reflect those strategies. The novel feature of the approach is the use of reliability analysis together with game theory and optimization to study optimal management of intentional threats to system reliability. Thus, this work extends and adapts the existing body of game-theoretic work on security to systems with series or parallel structures. The results yield insights into the nature of optimal defensive investments that yield the best tradeoff between investment cost and security. In particular, the results illustrate how the optimal allocation of defensive investments depends on the structure of the system, the cost-effectiveness of infrastructure protection investments, and the adversary's goals and constraints.

A basic security plan for a generic organization

Different organizations have plans in place to implement security in their computers and networks. In this paper, we examine the pros and cons of implementing a generic security plan on wired networks. The work presented here stems from an Independent Study course taken by an undergraduate student in the spring 2003 semester. It is hoped that this paper will provide new ideas for educators to direct student research in this important subject as Independent Study or Directed Research courses.We first describe the common threats to automated information systems and wired networks and classify them into accidental, intentional, passive and active threats. Then we describe security plans currently existing in several organizations and institutions. Of particular interest are the details of the security plans implemented in governmental (military) organizations, businesses and corporations, and consumer end of the Internet. Comparison and contrast of the strengths and limitations of these plans form the core of our work.Next, we discuss the organization-dependent issues and risk prevention policies that constitute the backbone of an adequate security plan for wired networks. Common threats related to government, business and home user networks are categorized and described in detail. Our overall goal is to develop a basic security plan, which is not only generic enough to be a good fit in any organization, but also customizable to its particular needs. Toward this end, we study the different types of security plans in existence and generate a minimal set of requirements, which meet the various categories of threats identified. In the future, we plan to implement the proposed minimal security plan on a campus network. Experiments prior and subsequent to the implementation of the plan will demonstrate its efficacy.

Being Politically Impolite: Extending Politeness Theory to Adversarial Political Discourse

This article attempts to extend politeness theory beyond informal situations to adversarial political discourse, using Prime Minister's Question Time in the British Parliament as data. Viewing the House of Commons as a `community of practice' (Lave and Wenger, 1991) provides a way of exploring concepts of politeness and impoliteness against a set of member expectations. The article argues three main propositions: (1) that much of the discourse of Prime Minister's Question Time is composed of intentional and explicitly face-threatening (or face-enhancing) acts and that these can be analysed in terms of both propositional and interactional levels: (2) that negative politeness features co-exist with the performance of intentional threats to the hearer's positive face and that these can only be understood and interpreted in relationship to Parliament as an institution and the wider political context; and (3) that systematic impoliteness is not only sanctioned but rewarded in accordance with the expectations of Members of the House by an adversarial and confrontational political process.