Security Review: Airport Security

By rudd at 2:09 am on February 11, 2008 | 2 Comments

Anyone who has travelled within the past 6 years has experienced the excruciating joy of going through modern airport security. For most domestic flights your checked bags go through one set of security procedures, and your person and carry on items go through another. I will be focusing on the personal/carry on side of airport security.
To get on a plane for a domestic flight, one must do the following:
Check in at the counter or online. This requires showing an ID to the desk attendant if checking bags. Then, after getting in line for security, you must show your ID to an ID checker. After this, your jacket and bags go through an X-ray, and you must walk through a metal detector. You may randomly get pulled over for an extra search, which might involve testing your bag for traces of explosive, checking your shoes, or any number of other things. After getting through this and reaching your gate, you show your boarding pass to an airline worker and board your plane.

Assets:
-Passenger safety in the airport. If someone were to sneak a gun into a crowded airport and start shooting, that would be very bad.
-Passenger safety on the plane. The passenger’s safety is at risk if their plane gets blown up or hijacked.
-Airline/Airport reputation. If a major security breach were to occur, the airline’s reputation would be damaged, as well as the reputation of the airport that let the security breach happen.
-Known ID of each person on each plane. This can be used to profile passengers and get a better sense of how ‘dangerous’ they might be.
-Timely access to flights. If there were 5 hour long waits in the security line, nobody would fly.
Potential Adversaries:
-Drug/illicit substance smugglers trying to move material long distances in a short amount of time.
-Terrorists looking to hijack a plane, destroy a plane or use a plane to destroy something else.
-Disgruntled employees in cahoots with either of the above.
Weaknesses:
-Single point of failure: For most domestic flights, there is one major security checkpoint. At this checkpoint, one person looks at your bags and one person checks you in the metal detector. A rogue employee could easily let a questionable person through this checkpoint.

-Staff negligence due to high traffic/laziness. During the past few years, I or members of my family and friends have

  • Checked in someone who was not present by showing an ID card.
  • Gone through the entire ID checking process with mismatched ID and ticket
  • Boarded the wrong plane
  • Carried lighters, small knives, small fireworks, 5 lbs of charcoal, .5 gallon of liquid, etc. through security and onto the plane
  • Set off a metal detector and did not require additional screening after explaining that they had a pacemaker
  • Set off a metal detector and did not require additional screening after explaining that they had metal buttons in their jeans.

A determined group of individuals could utilize the above examples (as well as others) and multiple people to get past security and compromise the listed assets. The only way to protect against this is to require that airport staff always be attentive and follow policy.
-An attacker could easily sneak a fake gun, bomb or knife onto a plane. This would not be difficult, as plastic does not get picked up by metal detectors or x-rays. Once this was done, the attacker could use the fake weapon to intimidate and threaten passengers and plane crew into submission, possibly resulting in a hijacked or redirected plane.
Defenses:
-Regular audits to deter staff negligence. This is probably the most serious problem involving airport security. Regular audits and stricter policies could improve this from happening as often as it does.
-Physical bag checks in addition to x-ray checks. This would help to prevent adversaries from sneaking on fake guns/bombs onto planes.
-Multiple security agents at every security checkpoint. This would help to eliminate the single point of failure in most airport security systems.

Conclusion:
The question of how to balance customer safety with efficiency and speed is an especially important one in regards to airport security. While it is not practical to physically go through every piece of luggage or to not allow customers to carry on bags, a few simple weaknesses could be fixed by more efficient use of personnel.

Filed under: Physical Security,Security Reviews2 Comments »

2 Comments

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    Comment by dschen

    February 17, 2008 @ 9:18 pm

    Another glaring issue in airport security is what happens when you board the aircraft. Boarding a flight requires only a boarding pass and no matching of ID to the boarding pass is required. Sometimes the boarding pass isn’t even scanned, just visually inspected by airport personnel. While the lack of this additional check is likely to minimize boarding time, if one with a fake boarding pass would be able to get through security and board an aircraft with little trouble.

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    Comment by Authentic Coach Handbags

    July 8, 2008 @ 12:19 pm

    Wow, that is a lot of stuff through security. It is amazing to think that airport security, as strict as it is, still lets stuff through.

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