Interdiction Models and Homeland Security Risks

Homeland security risks remain eminent. As the risks associated with terrorist attacks and other disasters endure, questions addressing the problems associated with homeland security risks will continue to attract attention in the foreseeable future. Among the manageable problems concerning disaster preparedness and mitigation include the protection of critical infrastructures. Notwithstanding the growth in research and development of techniques and strategies for effectively managing critical infrastructure problems, issues have been left unaccounted for including the provision of open intelligence to adversaries. This letter provides a critical view of research on infrastructure vulnerability and analysis. Specifically, it warns of the potentially counter-productive nature of publishing interdiction models—methods for identifying the most vital assets within infrastructure systems—in which adversaries have the potential to adopt and apply interdiction models to maximize their own objectives of destruction. This letter calls for an incorporation of overlooked costs into the analysis of the effectiveness of techniques designed to identify and allocate fortification resources to assets within critical infrastructure systems.