Executive Summary
The White House is a vital building in the US since it is a symbol of the nation’s leadership and democracy. It is critical and has an infrastructural worth. The pertinence and number of individuals in the White House as well as its worth and symbolism not only to the US, it is a prime target for attacks. There are a number of threats facing the White House and they include; natural, human, and technological threats. Despite being labeled as the world’s most secure place, there could be a number of vulnerabilities in the White House. These vulnerabilities come in form of risks categorized as; physical and operational risks. A successful attack on the White House will have various catastrophic effects such as human life and property loss, loss of technical information to attackers and potential physical and emotional insecurity for everyone in the world. This paper is a risk analysis project that aims at assessing the threats, risks, consequences and gives a probable recommendation for mitigation or aversion of any possible either human, natural or technological faceted- attacks on the White House at any time.
PROJECT INTRODUCTION
The White House hosts the President of the US, is a symbolic building for its citizens, is an official reception for heads of states from other nations, dignitaries, and emissaries and doubles up also a place where the formal national address to the country are made by the president. It has an unprecedented infrastructural value in form of human; approximated 100,000 visitors and over 370 workers, information; most presidential duties are carried out from here and property; estimated value of a little under $10,000,000. This makes it making it be of a significant infrastructural value and critically a desideratum for attackers on a scale of 16 basing on the five criticality aspects that are usually considered for such a declaration (Keith, 2017).
There are three categories of threats the White House faces and are categorized into natural, human, and technological. Natural threats are those instigated by nature as; Fire, earthquakes, blizzard, tornados, climate change, and floods (FBI, 2017). Human threats are human-made problems including; nuclear wars, disruptions due to artificial intelligence, and disasters from runaway climate change, unenforced immigration, criminal cartels, rogue nations, and terrorism. Technological threats include these; cyber-attacks, missile threats, phishing, application for specific hacks, and bombings using improvised explosives (FWDP, 2017).
Vulnerability assessment of the White House indicates physical vulnerabilities; building’s perimeter walls and the possibility of smuggling arms, and operational vulnerability; employees tampering with security systems, cyber-attacks and compliance with internal security policies (Liu, Piegorsch, Grant Schissler, & Cuter, 2017). The consequence analysis shows the results of a potential attack on the White House and its likelihood including; human life and socioeconomic losses at a high rate, technological attack can lead to loss of vital top secret information, as well as fire bizarre and carnages but the latter can be mitigated swiftly due to the White House’s panoply of sophisticated devices by the Fire Department of the White House.
It is prudent to come up with possible plan and programs to counter an attack or prevent one from occurring. To improve the ability to make risk-informed strategic decisions in an attack, a risk management framework is established. They include; erection of a wall that can withstand high-intensity bombs, continually updating and setting up new firewalls that are capable of repelling even the most sophisticated cyber-attacks, and a fire response team on the ground who can deal with the danger of fire outbreaks if they occur to mitigate the effects of the attack though statistics doubt it(Vellaithurai, Srivastava, Zonouz, & Berthier, 2015).
PROJECT CONCLUSION
The security policy realm should be; realistic, attainable, inclusive and acceptable. There are three tenable security policies that could be implemented in order to achieve a secure and protected premise. They include the following. Conduction of a thorough search and screening for every individual who enters the while house by a deployment of security personnel and issuance of modern screening equipment to them. Monitoring of any movements in, out and around the premises by use of modern 24-hour working Digital Video Cameras and sedulous lighting in, out and around the premises immediately after darkness ensues anytime of the day.
The countermeasures encompass high tech systems as; security alarms, for instance, those used in banks, big offices, and security departments and are quite expensive for a common man. Low tech devices are also important, but not as effective as high tech. Low tech devices are those devices relating to physical components that complement high tech systems. There is also another system referred to as No tech; these are essential and effective operational components enforcing the aforementioned systems. High tech selections are Digital video system and Security alarm system the former being priority to capture video coverages and are very effective. Low-tech entails the use of Locks and Lighting. No-tech ventures are emergency measures; as passing apt laws, emergency protections as fire extinguishers. These are effective and essential policy guidelines umbrella upon which the above two operate within.