Webinar

Personnel security is comprised of security measures focused on people and behaviors rather than typical physical barriers approaches. Personnel security can be thought as the "administrative controls" in any advanced security program. This course will teach administration, management, and researchers the basic principles of threat assessment and introduce participants to the role of comprehensive personnel security in a laboratory biosecurity programs. The course is intended to give participants a basic tool-kit that will allow them to implement successful comprehensive insider threat mitigation strategies using personnel security approaches at their home institutes and to convey concepts in personnel security to their colleagues. Participants will be presented with relevant case studies in order to learn about relevant threats in the biomedical and health sectors. Participants will learn about all aspects of personnel security including: suitability, reliability, peer and self reporting strategies, threat assessment, OPSEC, INFOSEC, and an introduction to elicitation, manipulation and surveillance awareness. These concepts will be put in to practice in interactive, live role-playing scenarios that include interview tactics, deception detection elicitation and surveillance detection. Regulatory issues relevant to implementation of personnel security management programs, in particular changes to the Select Agent Regulations pertaining to Tier 1 agents, will also be discussed.

The Incident Command System (ICS) is the national gold standard for responding to any size incident in the United States. President George W. Bush mandated its use for all Federal Agencies and strongly recommended its use at all levels of government and within private organizations. The authors of this course have a significant amount of ICS experience, including the highest level of qualification in ICS: Type 1 Incident Commander. They have successfully used ICS in real-life laboratory incidents and Biosecurity exercises. The instructors intend to give the participants an overview of ICS and enough information to incorporate the system into their plans, training, and exercises. This will enable participants to begin maximizing response effectiveness and efficiency during a real laboratory incident.

A distinguishing factor between security and biosecurity programs is the fact that biosecurity programs are focused on assets that are biological in nature. This brings forth unique distinctions in implementing risk- and threat-based approaches to prevent the release, loss, or theft of these assets. This advanced workshop will challenge attendees to fully analyze a single biosecurity driven scenario through a series of risk and threat management decision-making. Participants will learn the principles of biosecurity, which set it apart from traditional security, by applying tactical methodology to analysis of a real-world biosecurity case study. The outcomes of this intensive course will be identification of biosecurity-specific risk and threats, their corresponding prioritization against a mitigation plan, approaches for blending these inputs for comprehensive biorisk management, and finally, an integrated biosecurity plan. Participants will leave the course with tools that will be applicable to their host institutions for future engagements building effective integrated biosecurity plans against scenarios.

Agricultural biosecurity is a critical component of the One Health concept. It includes various strategies designed to safeguard the health and welfare of agriculturally important animals, the environment, and society in general by preventing infections and their spread among these species, humans, and nontarget species, including wildlife. Increased movement of live animals and their products, as well as the growing trend towards intensification and expansion of animal production systems, represents a significant risk to food supply chains, public health, and the economy due to the possible emergence and spread of exotic animal pests and pathogens, zoonotic diseases, and foodborne agents. Effective management and control of these challenging and complex risks requires application of core principles and cohesive strategies that emphasize sustainability through improved husbandry and health management practices.