An Integrated Methodology for Sabotage Vulnerability Assessment

A methodology that provides an estimate of vulnerability to sabotage involving multiple targets in different locations is developed. The technique is a synthesis of fault tree analysis and a pathing algorithm. The fault tree is used to identify cut sets of target components and their locations, while the pathing algorithm identifies the optimal cut set of targets as well as the optimal path through these targets. The methodology implicitly examines all possible adversary sabotage strategies, where a strategy consists of traversing a path through areas in the facility in order to disable a cut set of target components. Because the methodology builds on existing work—a fault tree model and facility safeguards system model are usually available from safety and theft vulnerability studies—the effort required to perform sabotage vulnerability analysis is reduced.