Insights for Critical Alarm-Based Warning Systems from a Risk Analysis of Commercial Aviation Passenger Screening

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently commissioned a risk analysis of the passenger threat vector in which an adversary gains access through the screening checkpoint. The goal of the project was to provide insights to the TSA to improve both safety and resource allocation as they continue to develop new security procedures in a constantly evolving threat environment. The result was a probabilistic risk model to support the TSA as they plan future safety and resource allocations procedures. Because aviation passenger screening involves highly sensitive information, we discuss the insights gained from the study that are applicable for other highly critical security systems that rely on alarm-based warning technologies to detect anomalies.