Chemical process industries such as oil refineries, fertiliser plants, petrochemical plants, etc., which handle hazardous chemicals, are potential targets for deliberate actions by terrorists, criminals and disgruntled employees. Security risks arising out of these threats are real and must be assessed to determine whether the security measures employed within the facility are adequate or need enhancement. The essential steps involved are threat analysis, vulnerability analysis, security countermeasures, and emergency response. Threat analysis involves the study of identifying sources, types of threats, and their likelihood. Vulnerability analysis identifies the weaknesses in a system that adversaries can exploit. Depending on the threat likelihood and vulnerabilities, various security countermeasures are suggested to improve the plant security. Appropriate emergency response measures that could mitigate the consequences of a successful attack and concepts of inherently safer processes in the light of process security are also discussed in the paper. It is recognised that serious terrorist threats exist to the transport system of hazardous chemicals (by road, rail cars, ships, pipelines, etc.). However, that is not a part of this study, which concentrates on process plants and hazardous materials within immovable boundaries. A case study of a fertiliser plant is used to show the application of ideas presented. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.