In light of the regular evolution of modern security protocols, much has been said about how integrated physical and cyber security need to be. As hackers get increasingly sophisticated in their attacks on companies and their data, security managers have to do everything in their power to meet the moment.
While a big part of this involves training staff at all levels to handle threats like phishing attacks or malware and ransomware, a big thrust behind contemporary security is embracing the use of technology that merges the physical and cyber seamlessly.
In a new piece written jointly for Innovation & Tech Today, Matt Lindley, the COO and CISO of NINJIO, and Mike Maxsenti, general manager of Genea Access Control and founder of Sequr, the best practices for a modern, integrated approach to security are laid out clearly.
“Developments in recent years have made physical security and physical cybersecurity an increasingly urgent priority: the massive influx of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the shift to remote and hybrid work, and the multiplying intersections between the digital and physical worlds,” Maxsenti and Lindley write. “From a stolen flash drive to unauthorized access to an office or server room, there are many ways physical security breaches can end up infecting an organization’s entire network. This is why employees must be familiar with best practices around physical security and aware of how cybercriminals can strike in tangible ways.”
In other words, there is no real division between the two branches of security today. Staff for cyber and staff for physical security who were once siloed from one another, now must be aligned. A firm’s most sensitive assets are at stake.
In just one concrete example, the article’s authors point to the fact that flash drives — something a physical security expert might not have considered in the past — mark both physical and cyber risks.
“Threats from compromised flash drives have also increased in recent years. A 2022 report published by Honeywell found that cyber threats capable of propagating through flash drives shot up from 19 percent in 2019 to 52 percent in 2021,” they write. “As cybercriminals have demonstrated their willingness and ability to use physical attack vectors, the number of those attack vectors is rising. Many of these devices (such as “smart” home products) don’t have robust security protocols and can put other devices on their networks – like a work computer – at risk.”
This is just one example, but it reveals the pressing reality of how everyone dealing with a company’s security protocols has to be on the same page. Bad actors won’t be waiting for everyone to gradually integrate.
The threats are very real, and they’re here.
Peter Cavicchia II 