By Rony Vexelman, NICE Systems
Security reportedly accounts for 25 percent of an airport’s operating budget, with the vast majority concentrated on protecting terminals. Perimeter protection often takes a back seat–far, far in the back. The reasoning is straightforward: While perimeter breaches happen, so far they’ve mostly only caused reputational damage and some embarrassment.
Since 9/11, there’s been tremendous emphasis placed on airport security, and rightfully so. But as time passes, and the memory of this tragedy dissipates, budgets become tighter. And since a perimeter breach has yet to lead directly to widespread human injury or harm, perimeter security remains a lesser priority.
While unsecured perimeters haven’t resulted in catastrophic damage, that doesn’t mean they aren’t a vulnerability. Airport perimeters span miles and are the largest unmanned areas of airports. Typically security is limited to roving guards patrolling fences, and is sometimes supplemented by surveillance video or other sensors.
In 2012, $69 million was invested in airport perimeter security measures in the United States. To put this into context, the TSA’s total annual budget for aviation security is more than $4.9 billion. More concerning, budgets are potentially shrinking. Frost & Sullivan estimates that by 2017, airports will reduce spending on perimeter security to approximately $47.5 million per year.
Comparatively European airports attribute more resources to perimeter security, said John Hernandez, an aerospace defense senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. But even they are not immune to a breach.
In February 2013, thieves dressed as police officers driving official-looking cars breached the perimeter fence of Brussels Airport in Belgium, and waited for nearly eight minutes while $50 million in diamonds was moved from an armored security van onto a plane. Once the consignment was loaded, the thieves moved in. It took them only two minutes and 50 seconds to board the plane and make off with the jewels.
Perimeter Breaches: Not Uncommon
So far in the United States, perimeter intrusions haven’t been as nefarious, but they are plentiful. According to the TSA, there were approximately 25,000 airport perimeter security breaches at U.S. airports between November 2001 and July 2011. Since then, there have been a number of highly publicized incidents.
The most notable perimeter security breach occurred in April 2014 when a 15-year-old boy hopped the fence at Mineta San Jose International Airport, randomly picked a plane, and hid in its wheel well until he arrived safely in Maui. Since then, the San Jose airport has experienced four additional perimeter breaches, the most recent occurring in March.
A similar incident occurred a few years earlier at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. However, in this case the teenage stowaway fell to his death when the plane’s landing gear dropped during the final approach to its destination.
In another example of a perimeter security breach, a stranded jet skier in Jamaica Bay swam to shore, and climbed the eight-foot perimeter fence of John F. Kennedy International Airport. He walked across two runways and passed several security cameras and motion detectors before being spotted.
Perimeter Security Challenges
There is very little consistency in the way perimeter security is handled. The TSA is responsible for ensuring airport operators adhere to an appropriate security plan that meets federal standards, but perimeter security is primarily the responsibility of airport operators. Despite implementing activities to assess airport perimeter risks, the TSA failed to conduct perimeter vulnerability assessments for 87 percent of the nation’s 450 commercial airports, according to a 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. This exemplifies the lack of attention given to perimeter security.
The sheer amount of space airports occupy poses a significant perimeter security challenge. For instance, Mineta San Jose International Airport is one of the country’s smaller airports, and its perimeter is about five miles long. The perimeters of Los Angeles International Airport and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport are approximately 10 and 20 miles long, respectively, while Denver International Airport’s perimeter spans more than 29 miles. Combined, the perimeters of all U.S. airports nearly equal the length of the U.S. border with Mexico—a border for which security expenditures approach a billion dollars annually.
Most airports don’t have an operating perimeter intrusion detection system in place, so airport security and management only find out about a breach after it occurs.
There are hundreds of different sensors and systems airports can use to protect the perimeter, but they don’t come without challenges. For example, weather and natural elements often prohibit the use of certain sensors without environmental filters due to a high false alarm rate.
Some airports use multiple detection methods, but using multiple systems can be problematic because they generally work in isolation. Each sensor can provide some information, but it often fails to provide the complete picture needed to accurately assess the situation.
For example, thermal imaging cameras or radar can indicate if something is at the perimeter, but don’t identify what or who that something is. Similarly, a fence shake detector can be helpful, but when the system sounds the alarm it doesn’t provide insight into what’s causing the shaking. Cameras with video analytics can also be effective, but there’s no way to completely eliminate false alarms.
A Multifaceted Approach
Perimeter protection requires a multilayered approach, including a Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) technology that can correlate incoming information from various perimeter intrusion detection systems and provide a higher level of situational awareness. For example, how can airport security determine whether an alarm from a fence shake detector is a gust of wind or something more serious? PSIM combines the fence shake alert with a video analytics alert so airport security can have a high level of confidence that a perimeter intrusion is real. And, the PSIM system can put information together in real time, so security staff can be appropriately alerted and respond accordingly.
Miami International Airport has taken an innovative, multilayered approach to perimeter security and combined its existing technologies, such as tower radar, video management, and video cameras, with newly purchased ground radar, vehicle GPS tracking, and various low light/fixed thermal/PTZ tracking cameras. A PSIM solution pulls information from all of these sensors together and provides analytic and visualization capabilities that help security more accurately identify, locate, and confirm unidentified targets that could pose a threat. This approach also allows the airport to leverage its existing investments in security technology more effectively by integrating siloed systems into a cohesive solution.
Airports can take this a step further with new video analytics applications, such as NICE Suspect Search, that allow security staff to track down an intruder once a perimeter breach has been detected. Suspect Search integrates with video surveillance, including PTZ cameras, and PSIM. Using an image captured from a video camera or a user-generated avatar, the application automatically searches through video across all of an airport’s surveillance cameras and displays possible matches of the intruder in seconds. Once the intruder has been identified, his or her movements are recreated on a map so airport security personnel can visualize the intruder’s route and last known location.
Just because the impacts of perimeter security breaches to date haven’t been widespread or catastrophic doesn’t mean perimeter security should be put on the back-burner. Airports must take a multilayered, proactive approach to perimeter protection. Fortunately, the technologies exist to make security efficient, and even cost-effective, with the ability to leverage existing systems
About the author:
Rony Vexelman is product marketing and marketing operations associate for NICE Systems’ Security Division. He has close to half a decade of experience in the security industry and holds a double degree in Business Administration and Sociology and Anthropology from the Tel Aviv University.
