The Challenges of Explosive Detection

MAY 2016 CTC SENTINEL 5
Training is Critical
There are multiple challenges that are continuously present in the
aviation security sector but none more critical than consistent high
performance of humans in the security chain. The human component
as a vulnerability can be exploited either through incapable
or poorly trained security staff or through corruption, direct intimidation
(or extortion), or by placing an “agent” in the system that
facilitates or directly attacks the system.
In congressional testimony in November, DHS Inspector General
John Roth said the latest covert testing had identified human failure
as a key vulnerability. 18 While his testimony did not delve into
the causes of human failure such as competency, poor hiring, lack of
training, or corruption, it did highlight the high interdependency of
humans, technology, and processes for the successful management
of the aviation security system. Training and performance metrics
are key to successful performance, particularly in a high-risk environment
in which routines, boredom, and complacency are as big
a threat as a terrorist exploiting the system.
Although TSA does not conduct passenger screening abroad,
it requires airports that serve as the last point of departure to the
United States meet stringent security standards. The bottom line is
U.S. and European efforts to protect the traveling public are inextricably
dependent on countries that have inadequate and inconsistent
procedures due to lack of leadership, commitment, and/or
technology. The TSA and ECAC have spent hundreds of millions
of dollars (as has the private sector) to develop advanced and highly
capable technologies to detect and prevent exactly these type of
attacks.
Inconsistent standards in some parts of the world have compelled
some U.S. carriers to purchase ETD equipment to augment
screening prior to passengers boarding aircraft after passing
through local security checks. This is a recognized gap in some regions
of the world where security requirements are either lacking
or sub-standard and a passenger or cargo threat can be placed on
board an aircraft and then propagated through the aviation system
to a high-value target well inside the secure zone. At the present
time, this last point of departure approach to using gate checking
with existing technologies to ensure that security standards are
maintained from point of origin to final destination is a temporary
and not very efficient approach, and it is necessary to close the gap.
Many security agencies around the world have recognized this challenge
and are working diligently to harmonize explosives detection
requirements into a global standards regime.
Insider Threat
The lack of worldwide standards and implementation of best practices
are compounded by the difficultly of detecting the “insider
threat.” Insiders—people who have legitimate access to secure
areas—can plant a bomb or assist a bomber in carrying out their
mission. They include baggage handlers and service, security, and
airline personnel, virtually anyone who has access to the airport.
Insiders can be turned into terrorist recruits, pressured to cooperate
through financial gain, extortion or threats, and they are difficult
to detect. That is what is believed to have happened on the Russian
airliner that took off from Sharm el-Sheikh last October and clearly
that is what happened to enable the bomber to board the Daallo
plane in February.
The United States is not immune to such threats. Inspector General
Roth also testified about previous 2012 results from testing
TSA’s Airport Access Control Systems and reported that they “identified
significant access control vulnerabilities, meaning uncleared
individuals could have unrestricted and unaccompanied access to
the most vulnerable parts of the airport—the aircraft and checked
baggage.” 19 The OIG also reported last summer that tests of the
screening system showed that 95 percent of attempts to smuggle
weapons through U.S. checkpoints were successful. 20 Though the
failures were again related mostly to human performance factors
rather than criminal collusion, if this is the state of performance in
the most advanced country in the world, then it highlights significant
gaps in the airline security network worldwide.
Even the best technology cannot overcome incompetence let
alone outright complicity with terrorists’ intent on thwarting security.
Personnel that have access to airside services to perform their
functions have to undergo screening similar to passengers, though,
as the Inspector General’s report revealed, compliance with regulations
and policies does not necessarily guarantee security. 21
Conclusion
Security has always been a “people, process, and technology” business,
and it appears more than ever that advanced technology needs
to be applied uniformly across the entire global aviation sector, as
well as other vulnerable sectors to detect evolving threats. While
state-of-the-art technology is good at detecting explosives, the concern
is that terrorist capabilities are challenging our technological
capability to detect the latest threats.
U.S. government spending in the homeland security sector since
September 2001 can be estimated easily at well over $1 trillion.
However, as much as is spent to prevent incidents, terrorist groups
continue to innovate and modify their methods to attack their targets
of choice. The past several years has seen an increase in attacks
against hardened and soft targets in western countries as well as
the continued threat against airline-related targets. The pace of the
attacks seems to be increasing but so does the level of sophistication
of the attacks themselves. While capabilities are evolving and gaining
in sophistication, the use of those capabilities has become more
widespread and less centrally controlled, creating a “commoditized
terrorism” model in which these new methods can be used by virtually
any organized group or lone wolf actor. Terrorists have demonstrated
their ability to adapt and innovate while we continue to take
a methodical and studied approach to applying new technologies.
The reality of our current war on terrorism is that the costs are
inversely correlated. Terrorists can use inexpensive but highly effective
means to attack high-value and highly protected targets,
forcing governments to take stricter and more costly measures to
provide protection. Their model scales while ours becomes more
difficult to sustain. Until we are successful in changing the paradigm
in which cheap terrorism is effective terrorism, we need to be
prepared to continue to invest in technologies and processes that
make it more difficult for them to succeed. CTC