The
terrorism protection capability of data centers,
financial institutions, and pharmaceutical
facilities, and to another degree, museums
and historical sites are currently, and justifiably,
undergoing major upgrades. Previously considered
"soft targets" by extremists, such
facilities provide a wide range of critical
functionality to our culture and would represent
a major “moral victory to the followers
of these extremists if they were successfully
damaged or destroyed. Vulnerability assessments
for facilities of this type invariably recommend
perimeter security relying on the defense-in-depth
philosophy in which concentric security barriers
and buffer zones both aid detection of a breach
and delay an attack. This allows time for
a sufficiently equipped response force to
react to the threat.