It seems that the chap who caused the alarm in MUC last week was a hapless traveller who did not realize that he had caused the alarm. It is highly likely he was not a German speaker so did not understand what was said to him. According to news reports German authorities have concluded that a man whose laptop triggered a security scare at Munich airport last week was a harmless passenger.
Part of a terminal was closed for hours Wednesday after the man left a screening area with his laptop, which had triggered an alert for possible explosives, without waiting for officials to check it again.
The regional government said Sunday that video footage showed him wandering from the screening area to a duty-free shop. It said he apparently didn't know he caused the alert. He was evacuated along with other passengers and then went through security again -- this time without trouble -- several hours later. The scare embarrassed authorities. Germany's interior minister has promised a thorough investigation.
I will say again that the decision to empty the terminal when the security people "lost" the passenger was the right one. However the handling of the situation shows that more care and thought needs to go into the process.
In security management there is a constant battle of finding the bad guys with "false positives". The notion of false positives - ie how many good guys do you capture along with the bad guys makes the process of identification pretty tough. When new security or heightened security measures are introduced they typically are panic driven addressing the latest threat(s). Just like some of the really stupid ideas post the Christmas Underwear Bomber.
We have all been lulled into sense of "security" that there are so many layers that it must be impossible to breach them. So in effect the focus has shifted from smart thinking to efficient execution. This is VERY DANGEROUS. We need to be smarter than the bad guys. So far we have not demonstrated that. And we need to do a better job.
Remember we retain a degree success only because the other chaps have not been smart enough. It shows however that there is no perfect solution and more importantly there there is no fixed or permanent solution.
Remember - Security is dependent on all of us.
Cheers
Showing posts with label Security Breach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Security Breach. Show all posts
25 January 2010
21 January 2010
Security: Live It! Be It!
So yesterday Jan 20th I happened to be at Munich Airport on my way to Berlin.
I had a ticket on LH and then stepped out of the check in process only to walk right into the mess. If you want to understand what happened go here.
So let's deal with two aspects of what happened in Munich yesterday.
1. Is how to provide customer information
2. The response to bad behavior.
In the first area - Munich Airport and Lufthansa lead tenant for Terminal 2 did a lousy job of communicating the issue. They clearly had no clue what to do - down to the inability to use the PA system to deliver pertinent (and useful) information to the people in the halls. Instead individual employees dribbled information to the assembled crowds (at one point probably around two thousand people) verbally using normal speaking voices.
In the second area they acted correctly. Shutting down the whole terminal and clearing it out was the right action. It doesn't matter whose fault it was or how the person managed to breech the security cordon - the fact is that this person did and the correct response was to shut down the terminal no matter what the cost.
However what this shows is that there is not enough empowerment at the security gates for security guards to actually handle security. This same charge can be leveled against Newark Airport in the incident over New Year. That says to me that after all this time - some authorities still have a poor impression of what their role is in security.
Finally the spin machine was completely out of line...
In an official statement - it just shows either the police were out to lunch or trying too much to put spin on it. Either way this is not acceptable and here is the quote:
The impression of officials was that "the passenger likely was in a bit of a hurry, grabbed his luggage and headed off," federal police spokesman Albert Poerschke said.
I rest my case.
I will say again. We ALL have a role in security. We all have to be constantly vigilant. Security is not something that other people do.
Cheers
I had a ticket on LH and then stepped out of the check in process only to walk right into the mess. If you want to understand what happened go here.
So let's deal with two aspects of what happened in Munich yesterday.
1. Is how to provide customer information
2. The response to bad behavior.
In the first area - Munich Airport and Lufthansa lead tenant for Terminal 2 did a lousy job of communicating the issue. They clearly had no clue what to do - down to the inability to use the PA system to deliver pertinent (and useful) information to the people in the halls. Instead individual employees dribbled information to the assembled crowds (at one point probably around two thousand people) verbally using normal speaking voices.
In the second area they acted correctly. Shutting down the whole terminal and clearing it out was the right action. It doesn't matter whose fault it was or how the person managed to breech the security cordon - the fact is that this person did and the correct response was to shut down the terminal no matter what the cost.
However what this shows is that there is not enough empowerment at the security gates for security guards to actually handle security. This same charge can be leveled against Newark Airport in the incident over New Year. That says to me that after all this time - some authorities still have a poor impression of what their role is in security.
Finally the spin machine was completely out of line...
In an official statement - it just shows either the police were out to lunch or trying too much to put spin on it. Either way this is not acceptable and here is the quote:
The impression of officials was that "the passenger likely was in a bit of a hurry, grabbed his luggage and headed off," federal police spokesman Albert Poerschke said.
I rest my case.
I will say again. We ALL have a role in security. We all have to be constantly vigilant. Security is not something that other people do.
Cheers
28 December 2009
You Are Only As Safe As......
In what must be a stunning admission of the obvious US Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”
If you go to the TSA website and read the complete guff that is there (I particularly like their Myth Busters section - it is rather inadequate I would say).
Of course after more than 8 years since 9/11 and countless pointers and incidents that have occurred before and since - we still do not have a secure system.
I recently travelled to 5 airports in South America. Liquids BTW are allowed through domestic flights and still between some countries. Over the past year I must have been through an airport over two hundred times or probably more. I have watched innumerable security devices that don't work and staff who either don't have a clue or are remarkably disinterested. The TSA is probably no worse but decidedly not best in class in this respect. There are many others who are better at doing this kind of work.
One statistic I would like to see is the amount of absenteeism for whatever reason for TSA employees. Saying (as the website does) you have improved considerably from prior years only shows how bad it was before. We must accept that the government is not going to be good at doing this any better than anyone else. So we are somewhat condemned to a mediocre system. We however as system users must fight for a better level of quality. It is not a temporary situation - we have to fight for it on every trip at every stage.
The current US Government solution has been based on a layered approach to the issue of security. This approach is still probably the best we have. However you have to ask yourself is it adequate? More importantly are all the elements for a formal layered system in place? In my opinion it is clearly neither. I liken the approach of the management (by the Dept Of Homeland Security) of this layered approach to that of the US financial ratings agencies. They only realize there is a problem when someone else points it out to them, even though to the common man it is blatantly obvious.
So I will (probably misquote in words but the context is clear) quote Rafi Ron who was the head of Tel Aviv Airport security - he now runs his own security firm in the DC area. He stated on a panel I ran in 2002 - "You are only as safe as your fellow passengers are alert and will let you be safe".
Judging by the events of the past few days on NW253 this was the case.
So ask yourself the one question. What would you have done? Clearly a lot of other people on the NW flight just sat in their seats petrified. Only a few passengers decided to take action. If you can believe the news reports, the crew were not the people to take the terrorist to the secure seat. It was the passenger who jumped him. That shows that we still have a lot of issues as to how the system could work.
Next time you listen to that pre-flight briefing announcement consider that one phrase actually rings very hollow. It goes something like this "... Remember the Flight Attendants are here for your safety".
Safe travels everyone.
Cheers
If you go to the TSA website and read the complete guff that is there (I particularly like their Myth Busters section - it is rather inadequate I would say).
Of course after more than 8 years since 9/11 and countless pointers and incidents that have occurred before and since - we still do not have a secure system.
I recently travelled to 5 airports in South America. Liquids BTW are allowed through domestic flights and still between some countries. Over the past year I must have been through an airport over two hundred times or probably more. I have watched innumerable security devices that don't work and staff who either don't have a clue or are remarkably disinterested. The TSA is probably no worse but decidedly not best in class in this respect. There are many others who are better at doing this kind of work.
One statistic I would like to see is the amount of absenteeism for whatever reason for TSA employees. Saying (as the website does) you have improved considerably from prior years only shows how bad it was before. We must accept that the government is not going to be good at doing this any better than anyone else. So we are somewhat condemned to a mediocre system. We however as system users must fight for a better level of quality. It is not a temporary situation - we have to fight for it on every trip at every stage.
The current US Government solution has been based on a layered approach to the issue of security. This approach is still probably the best we have. However you have to ask yourself is it adequate? More importantly are all the elements for a formal layered system in place? In my opinion it is clearly neither. I liken the approach of the management (by the Dept Of Homeland Security) of this layered approach to that of the US financial ratings agencies. They only realize there is a problem when someone else points it out to them, even though to the common man it is blatantly obvious.
So I will (probably misquote in words but the context is clear) quote Rafi Ron who was the head of Tel Aviv Airport security - he now runs his own security firm in the DC area. He stated on a panel I ran in 2002 - "You are only as safe as your fellow passengers are alert and will let you be safe".
Judging by the events of the past few days on NW253 this was the case.
So ask yourself the one question. What would you have done? Clearly a lot of other people on the NW flight just sat in their seats petrified. Only a few passengers decided to take action. If you can believe the news reports, the crew were not the people to take the terrorist to the secure seat. It was the passenger who jumped him. That shows that we still have a lot of issues as to how the system could work.
Next time you listen to that pre-flight briefing announcement consider that one phrase actually rings very hollow. It goes something like this "... Remember the Flight Attendants are here for your safety".
Safe travels everyone.
Cheers
15 December 2008
Top Travel Security Breaches in 2008
not a good thing to be known for but acording to Baseline Magazine the top 2 security breaches belong to
Alaska Airlines (#5)
Best Western (#6)
http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/IT-Management/Top-10-Security-Breaches-in-2008/?kc=BLBLBEMNL12152008STR1
Ouch
Alaska Airlines (#5)
Best Western (#6)
http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/IT-Management/Top-10-Security-Breaches-in-2008/?kc=BLBLBEMNL12152008STR1
Ouch
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