Scott Breor, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, and Amy Graydon, Deputy Director of the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD) in the National Protection and Programs Directorate address members of the media on Wednesday at GSX 2018.
Photo credit: (Photo courtesy Joel Griffin)
BY JOEL GRIFFIN ON SEP 27, 2018, SecurityInfoWatch.com
Established in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, the Department of Homeland Security was designed to bring together all of the agencies that comprise the nation’s security apparatus so that the security failings of that day would not be repeated.
And while a terror attack of the scale of 9/11 has not been perpetrated on U.S. soil in the years since, the mission of the department has also had to adapt and change with the times.
While many of the threats facing the country in the wake 9/11 are still very much the same, there is now an increased emphasis on trying to curtail attacks against soft targets in the form of active shooters, vehicle ramming and various others methodologies.
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Rather than highly organized terror plots, the agency now faces the challenge of trying to mitigate attacks carried out by so-called “lone wolf” actors, who oftentimes exhibit few warning signs prior to carrying out an attack.
The agency is also simultaneously tasked with trying to protect the nation’s infrastructure against both physical and cyber threats, which seem to grow ever more complex by the day.
To discuss these and other issues, two of the agency’s high ranking officials - Scott Breor, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, and Amy Graydon, Deputy Director of the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD) in the National Protection and Programs Directorate- held a press conference on Wednesday at GSX 2018 in Las Vegas.
Both Breor and Graydon weighed in on the various challenges facing the security industry and how the agency is working with both government and private partners to address them.
Soft Targets
One of the biggest threats that law enforcement and government officials have had to address more recently is how to better secure soft targets, but it’s actually a challenge that DHS has been developing mitigation solutions around for a while.
Following the Paris terror attacks in 2015, Breor said the agency took a “serious look” at not only the programs they had in place relative to soft target protection but also how they operate as an organization.
As a result, DHS developed a plan centered around mitigating attacks against soft targets and also established an executive steering committee across the agency that included representatives from all the departments within DHS that enables them to collaborate and address a wide range of security challenges.
