By KUNA,
London : The risks posed by employees linked to terrorist groups have been inadequately addressed by companies managing Britains infrastructure, according to government officials Monday.
The risk of disruption to elements of Britains critical national infrastructure remains an important official concern three years after the attacks on Londons transport network that killed 52 commuters, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper said.
The British Government has identified nine industry sectors, including telecommunications, energy, and finance, as critical to the national infrastructure.
Government advisers to the private sector say many companies in these key industries have moved further to address physical and other security requirements than they have to deal with risks of sabotage from insiders.
Only the transport system has so far been targeted by terrorists, and officials say it is possible that it is the complexity of other infrastructure industries that has protected them from attack.
This would increase the value to a terrorist group of having members inside key organisations, officials say.
The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, formed last year from the merger of two organisations and run as part of the British domestic security service, known as “MI5”, is advising companies to focus attention on the parts of their organisations where the risks for disruption are concentrated.
Officials stress that this effort is not about “profiling” people who may be viewed as higher risk, but about identifying the jobs or tasks where most vulnerability exists. “Its essential to make this job-focused, not people-focused,” says one official.
Financial businesses, long worried about the risk of employees committing fraud, are ahead of other infrastructure companies in addressing this threat, the main busineess daily in Europe said.
The new method of risk assessment follows criticism last year of the old method from Admiral Lord West, who was last year appointed parliamentary undersecretary of state for security and counter-terrorism.
He told a conference last week that the new approach to terrorism risk assessment had been agreed, the FT added.