Protecting Our Waters Within: A Vulnerability Assessment of Maritime Infrastructure Within Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley

摘要

A major focus of this thesis is to examine how the Model-Based Vulnerability Analysis (MBVA) can help reveal network vulnerabilities and resource allocation costs to harden and repair damages to critical infrastructure within Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley. MBVA is a relevant form of RBDM for Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley. From a network standpoint, Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley is a component of the Western Rivers Sector, which is part of the Maritime Transportation Sector, and a sub-set of the Transportation Sector. Together, the various levels of the Transportation Sector form a network with interdependent vulnerabilities and resource allocation issues. A comparison summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the NIST, PSRAT and MBVA RBDM processes reveal that there is no 'one stop shop' RBDM system. While evaluating the strengths and weakness of these RBDM systems, their capabilities were analyzed based on their ability to: provide allocation strategy; estimate vulnerability and risk; identify critical assets; differentiate types of risk; identify vulnerabilities of a port; identify vulnerabilities of a system of ports and their performance measurement methods. The comparison revealed that the MBVA process offered the only systematic resource allocation strategy. However, each system contained robust vulnerability and risk processes.