Threat and Vulnerability Assessments

Threat and vulnerability assessments can help you choose the most appropriate and cost-effective physical security measures for your facility. These assessments are different processes, although they sometimes overlap.

Threat assessment is the acquisition, evaluation, analysis, and dissemination of information about individuals and groups that may present some level of threat to a Forest Service facility or the people at the facility. The assessment includes consideration of the individual’s or group’s motives and intentions, their capabilities, their past actions, and their alliances. Forest Service law enforcement personnel would be a good source of threat assessment information, but such information does not have to come from law enforcement agencies. Your human resources manager may know of an employee who is at risk of domestic or workplace violence. Seek out threat assessment information from all elements of your facility.

A vulnerability assessment is a self-examination of your own facility to identify conditions that might be exploited or attacked by an attacker. Vulnerability assessment requires you to try to see your own security faults as an attacker would see them. Such an assessment is difficult for you to do effectively, because you have insider information about the Forest Service. Forest Service employees who conduct vulnerability assessments need to set aside everything they already know about the staffing and operation of their facility.