Risk Analysis and Security Counter Measure Discussion Identify five different known adversaries and discuss their capabilities. Choose two potential targe

Risk Analysis and Security Counter Measure Discussion Identify five different known adversaries and discuss their capabilities.

Choose two potential targets in your city or town and discuss which potential adversaries would want to attack or exploit them and why.

Select two of your classmates’ posts. Discuss similarities and differences with your identified adversaries and what accounts for those similarities and differences.

Textbook: Risk Analysis and Security Countermeasure Selection, Review Chapter 7

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Peer post 1

The five types of threat actors are terrorists, economic criminals, violent criminals, subversives, and petty criminals. Defining what a terrorist is pretty difficult as the term is not exactly defined itself. The working definition of a terrorist, is an individual who has a motive whether it is political or religious reasons to change an establish society. A economic criminal from a mugger to a global criminal organization. Violent criminals area those other than terrorists who use the means of violence to achieve their goals. Subversives are protest groups or organizations. Petty criminals can be defined as prostitution, vandalism and invasion of privacy.

Where I live is in a triangle of ideal targets for terrorists. With Baltimore to the north as a major port and localized trade center. To the south is Washington D.C. which is home to the capital of our nation, many landmarks, and embassies of other countries. While this area is also home to many headquarters of intelligence agencies there have in the five years that I have lived here been four separate incidents involving the NSA. One, the suspects were killed in attempt to access the entrance. Another involved a parked car and shooting across a very busy highway injuring some military members. Another was an individual accessing the military base while attempting to escape the police in a chase and blew through one of the gates and escaped into the base casing the base to lockdown. Our country has one of the largest intelligence gathering organizations, which in some countries these individuals feel as if their being invaded and see it as a motive and lash back at the organizations that do this.

Peer post 2

Fellow classmates,

Five different adversaries are terrorists, economic criminals, non-terrorist violent criminals, subversives, and petty criminals (Norman, L. pp. 125-126). It should go without saying that the capabilities of these adversaries are quite diverse, but let’s look at some of those capabilities.

Terrorists: The capabilities of terrorists run the gambit from kidnappings, assassinations, espionage, drug manufacturing and distribution, car-bombings, hi-jacking planes and crashing them into buildings, cyber-terrorism, and a host of other capabilities.
Economic criminals: In this category you’ll find the junkie robbing a store for the money they need for their next fix, drug traffickers, wise guys running book making and loansharking operations, Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs running guns and prostitution rings, career criminals that specialize in robbing banks or armored cars, cyber-criminals and the list goes on.
Non-terrorist violent criminals: Here we find the disgruntled worker and there was a rash of them in the Post Office, a visitor upset with a judge’s ruling, breaks into the courtroom and starts shooting up the place, rapist and pedophiles, muggers, spousal abusers and other violent criminals.
Subversives: Probably the three most prominent in this category are hackers, industrial spies and paparazzi. Hackers are exceptionally dangerous because if they hack into a company’s system they can not only steal proprietary data they can get critical information on employees and customers. Industrial spies are intent on stealing proprietary information from a company or perhaps even sabotaging a company’s capabilities. To accomplish this the industrial spy may employ a hacker to make his task that much easier. Paparazzi are an especially annoying group to celebrities. They go through their trash, break into their homes or trespass on their property to get that revealing photo. They claim to be journalists, but they’re little better than the stalkers celebrities must contend with.
Petty criminals: In this last category you’ll find prostitutes, pickpockets, vandals, which includes both those that physically damage a building like break windows and graffiti artists, drunks and panhandlers. Petty criminals are just that, petty. While they may detract from the traffic a business enjoys, they are little more than a nuisance.

The city government where I live has an IT department and they have firewalls installed on the city’s servers, but what they do not have is a person specifically trained and tasked to counter a cybercriminal. A subversive, that is a competent hacker, would have little trouble breaking into the city’s server. The potential damage that can be caused is immeasurable. The hacker would have complete access to all the city’s financial information, employee’s vital data like date of birth, and social security numbers. They would also have access to all the police department’s files, operations, strategic planning, etc.

The 9/11 hijackers, in my opinion, made a tactical error when they attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These targets were along the Eastern Coast, which made them relatively easy targets; it’s easy to attack something along the coast. If they really wanted to have stricken fear into the hearts of Americans, they should have crashed those plans in places like Omaha or Kansas City. That would have sent a powerful message that we aren’t safe anywhere. I bring this up because the police department where I live is relatively unguarded. There are no gates, or concrete barriers blocking vehicle access. In fact, parking for police vehicles is in the basement of the police department and they only thing blocking access to that is a garage door. If a know Islamic Terrorist organization like ISIS, or al-Qaeda, or a domestic terrorist organization were to drive a truck up the stairs into the lobby of the police department or ram a car through the garage door in the basement and set of a large explosion, that would virtually wipe out the entire police and sheriff departments as they are headquartered in the same building. An attack like that would send a very powerful message to the country: “We can get to you anywhere.”

References:

Norman, CPP, T. L., PSP, CSC. (2016). Risk Analysis and Security Countermeasure Selection, Second Edition, pp. 125-126.