A Risk Assessment Framework For Interconnected And Interdependent Surface Transport Networks

The functioning and viability of modern societies is heavily depended upon the continuous and uninterruptible operation of critical infrastructures. Surface transportation systems are in the heart of the daily lives of millions of citizens globally. As such, they are open and freely accessible by design and in the past have been exploited for terrorism attacks. Like many critical infrastructures, different multimodal and heterogeneous transportation networks are interconnected as integral part of larger synergistic systems forming a “network of networks”. These underlying and often concealed interconnections between network assets enable adverse effects to manifest at assets that are initially unaffected by a security incident. The present paper introduces a holistic Risk Assessment Framework for heterogeneous, transportation networks that is applicable at a strategic level, where risk is propagated between interconnected networks through an “Incident Propagation Matrix” taking into account the nature of the interconnection and the type of threat. The proposed methodology views and models the risk analysis process from the perspective of the network operator and emergency responders and emphasizes the reduction of the impacts on business continuity

TENSOR: retrieval and analysis of heterogeneous online content for terrorist activity recognition

The proliferation of terrorist generated content online is a cause for concern as it goes together with the rise of radicalisation and violent extremism. Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) need powerful platforms to help stem the influence of such content. This article showcases the TENSOR project which focusses on the early detection of online terrorist activities, radicalisation and recruitment. Operating under the H2020 Secure Societies Challenge, TENSOR aims to develop a terrorism intelligence platform for increasing the ability of LEAs to identify, gather and analyse terrorism-related online content. The mechanisms to tackle this challenge by bringing together LEAs, industry, research, and legal experts are presented

A Risk Assessment Framework For Interconnected And Interdependent Surface Transport Networks

The functioning and viability of modern societies is heavily depended upon the continuous and uninterruptible operation of critical infrastructures. Surface transportation systems are in the heart of the daily lives of millions of citizens globally. As such, they are open and freely accessible by design and in the past have been exploited for terrorism attacks. Like many critical infrastructures, different multimodal and heterogeneous transportation networks are interconnected as integral part of larger synergistic systems forming a “network of networks”. These underlying and often concealed interconnections between network assets enable adverse effects to manifest at assets that are initially unaffected by a security incident. The present paper introduces a holistic Risk Assessment Framework for heterogeneous, transportation networks that is applicable at a strategic level, where risk is propagated between interconnected networks through an “Incident Propagation Matrix” taking into account the nature of the interconnection and the type of threat. The proposed methodology views and models the risk analysis process from the perspective of the network operator and emergency responders and emphasizes the reduction of the impacts on business continuity

Kavallieros et al PPDR Information Systems -A Current Status Review Report PPDR Information Systems -A Current Status Review Report

ABSTRACT Public safety organizations include emergency and law enforcement agencies, fire departments, rescue squads, and Emergency Medical Services (EMS). In response to increasing threats of terrorism and natural disasters, safety and security personnel must overcome technology barriers to enhance their efficiency, especially in the neuralgic section of information exchange. Limited availability of information hinders the response time and decision making process. Efficient communications supported by interoperable technology are vital to the situational awareness, scalability, and effectiveness of incident response. This paper's prime objective is the review of available information systems than can be used to support and assist security agencies

Combatting cybercrime and sexual exploitation of children: an open source toolkit

This chapter presents the UINFC2 “Engaging Users in preventing and fighting Cybercrime” software platform, showcasing how software tools designed to detect, collect, analyse, categorise and correlate information that is publically available online, can be used to enable and enhance the reporting, detection and removal capabilities of law enforcement and hotlines in response to cybercrimes and crimes associated with the sexual exploitation of children. It further discusses the social, economic and wider impact of cybercrime on a European and global scale, highlighting a number of challenges it poses to modern society before moving on to discuss the specific challenge posed by the proliferation of online child exploitation material and discussing the functionalities of the UINFC2 system as a response mechanism

Building an IT Platform for Strategic Crisis Management Preparation

Abstract—.This paper presents the result of the work achieved by a European consortium, which has as goal to build an innovative system to assist security managers in the crisis preparation, training and management phases. The iterative approach of the consortium is presented, as well as the results. An novel interactive and shared Common Operational Picture is proposed which has been validated by three large scale demonstrations. On-going and future work focusing on the security of building interiors is moreover presented. I