inSCIghts

BULLSEYE

December 2nd, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

Bullseye… for cartoon aficionados is Woody’s horse in Toy Story. In the real world, it refers to a target or being ‘on target’. Even in colloquial ‘isms’, bullseye refers to being directly on the point of the subject matter. Thanks to dreamstime.com for their depiction of just that, being directly on target.

Did you know that the Philippines consists of 7,107 separate islands (at low tide that number climbs to 7,108? (It is difficult to get flood insurance if you want to try to live on that last island!) The largest of the islands is Luzon wherein lies Manila. The most violent and heavily terrorist controlled island is Mindanao. It was on Mindanao that New Tribes missionaries Martin and Grace Burnham were kidnapped while at a scenic resort area and Martin was eventually killed). Rony Lewitinn of HSN recently reported on a major security breach for communications companies by a group operating in the Philippines. The security breach could have world-wide effects as information has been obtained that permited hackers to AT&T’s system to route money from a Saudi based terrorist financing group directly to terrorist groups operating locally and beyond. For the hackers to fulfill their intended goal, on an archipelago of over 7,100 islands, they had to know exactly where and how to hit their target. It did not happen without a great deal of planning. It required knowledge and skill. As one visual aid that uses a target to explain the principle, the three rings are: Could Know, Should Know, and the bullseye is Must Know. Consider all of the details that the hackers Must Know to achieve such a major score.

One of the best times to stop a terrorist pr any other criminal is in the planning stages when they must visit their target multiple times to develop intelligence on the target, design a strategy as they consider the weaknesses and strengths of the security system and determine when where and how to attack.

The target model is also used in prevention of attacks and developing a security strategy. In both scenarios whether an attack or protection, the bullseye remains the same. It is either the target to be compromised or the asset to be protected. If you are protecting it, every circle is a line of defense. If the outermost circle is strong enough, the inner circles are unnecessary but a perfect line of defense is impossible. There are always vulnerabilities and that is why there is redundancy and additional rings of security. It is within every ring that the would-be thieves, assassins, or terrorists risk detection and apprehension.

For every asset that requires protection, (and I believe this is true absolutely universally for literally every asset), the outer most ring of security, the first ring where detection is possible and the first ring that is most difficult to breach without being noticed is the public. It is the average citizen, the person who lives every day in the area where the event or some part of the event will take place.Often dismissed as ineffective, useless, and even ignorant by those who are charged with security of the asset, the public, properly informed on the Suspicious Activity Reporting System, for example, has the greatest potential to detect an attack in its earliest planning stages. They know when something is not right or something is out of place. If they can put words to what they know and they also are taught with whom to share those words, providing the “professionals” on the receiving end take time to listen, then the first ring of security will work. Learn to utilize the first ring of the target protection model, it is a valuable...