Military tool may help farmers keep food safe

Washington

-- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has adapted a military offensive targeting prioritization tool into a new software program that will help the agriculture reduce its vulnerability to tampering and other criminal attacks.

The tool, named CARVER + Shock after military acronyms, assesses vulnerabilities to an attack within a system or infrastructure, says FDA. The program allows users to think like an attacker and identify possible targets. Using CARVER + Shock in food production facilities and processes has helped the industry protect the most susceptible points in its system, FDA says.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and FDA have used CARVER + Shock to evaluate vulnerabilities in the farm-to-table supply chins through face-to-face interviews. But that method requires a lot of resources, so FDA sponsored development of a software version of the CARVER + Shock program. The new software, available for download here, allows anyone along the food production chain to assess vulnerabilities in a confidential manner and may prove most valuable to state and local food security agencies, FDA says.