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CARVER + Shock Software Tool
What is CARVER + Shock? What is CARVER + Shock? CARVER + Shock is an offensive targeting prioritization tool adapted from the military version (CARVER) for use in the food industry. The tool can be used to assess the vulnerabilities within a system or infrastructure to an attack. It allows the user to think like an attacker to identify the most attractive targets for an attack. By conducting a CARVER + Shock assessment of a food production facility or process, the user can determine the most vulnerable points in their infrastructure, and focus resources on protecting the most susceptible points in their system. What are People Saying About CARVER + Shock? Watch a testimonial video (6:17 min.). Choose format and captioning option below, see video at left.
What Does C-A-R-V-E-R + Shock Mean? CARVER is an acronym for the following six attributes used to evaluate the attractiveness of a target for attack:
A seventh attribute, Shock, has been added to the original six to assess the combined health, economic and psychological impacts of an attack within the food industry. The attractiveness of a target can then be ranked on a scale from one to ten on the basis of scales that have been developed for each of the seven attributes. Conditions that are associated with lower attractiveness (or lower vulnerability) are assigned lower values (e.g., 1 or 2), whereas, conditions associated with higher attractiveness as a target (or higher vulnerability) are assigned higher values (e.g., 9 or 10). Evaluating or scoring the various elements of the food sector infrastructure of interest for each of the CARVER-Shock attributes can help identify where an attack is most likely to occur in that infrastructure. Federal agencies, such as FDA and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), have used this method to evaluate the potential vulnerabilities of farm-to-table supply chains of various food commodities. The method can also be used to assess the potential vulnerabilities of individual facilities or processes. How Do Federal Agencies Apply CARVER + Shock as a Food Defense Tool? Federal agencies, such as the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have used the CARVER + Shock method to evaluate the potential vulnerabilities of farm-to-table supply chains of various food commodities, as well as individual facilities or processes. These evaluations are carried out during face-to-face meetings of representatives from a particular segment of the food processing industry and Federal and State food safety agencies, and generally take two to three days. Using a scale from one to ten for each of the seven CARVER + Shock attributes, the participants score the "target attractiveness" of each segment, or "node", on a process flow diagram of the commodity or facility being evaluated. Conditions that are associated with lower attractiveness (or lower vulnerability) are assigned lower values (e.g., 1 or 2), whereas conditions associated with higher attractiveness (or higher vulnerability) are assigned higher values (e.g., 9 or 10). The individual scores for each CARVER + Shock attribute are then added together, so that each node in the diagram can have a total score ranging from 7 to 70. Why CARVER + Shock Software? Conducting face-to-face CARVER + Shock evaluations is resource-intensive and limiting in terms of the number of evaluations that can reasonably be conducted in any given time frame. Therefore, the FDA has sponsored development of CARVER + Shock software that can be downloaded. Having on-line CARVER + Shock software that produces results equivalent to those of a face-to-face session allows any member of the food processing industry to conduct a vulnerability assessment of their facilities and processes in a confidential manner. The software tool is expected to be used by State and local food security agencies, industrial providers and any other parties interested in food defense. The tool is designed for use throughout the food processing industry. The pathogens considered are those that will survive most processes and therefore provide a worst-case scenario. What Does CARVER + Shock Software Do? CARVER + Shock software mimics the thought processes in play during a face-to-face CARVER + Shock session by having the user:
Each question has an associated score. Based on the answers given, the software calculates a score for each CARVER + Shock attribute and sums them to produce a total score for each node. Analogous to a face-to-face session, total scores range from one to ten for each CARVER + Shock attribute and therefore 7 to 70 for each node. The user may view the attribute scores and total for each node, the total scores for all nodes, and the attribute scores for all nodes (e.g., all the node Criticality scores, Accessibility scores, etc.) System Requirements CARVER + Shock runs on hardware systems with the following minimum performance characteristics:
The software is compatible with the following operating systems:
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