In an ever-connected age, collaboration is truly the name of the game. With more complex threats to physical security infrastructure, along with multi-faceted cybersecurity threats, it is imperative that a company’s various security teams stand fully integrated now more than ever.
In a recent piece for SecurityInformed.com, Matthew Fabian, national director of sales engineering at Genetec, Inc., describes the need for close collaboration between all stakeholders in a company or firm’s security. Fabian notes how IT teams and traditional security officials used to stand starkly independent of one another. That tactic is obsolete in the 21st century, he writes in the article.
“Without IT involvement, physical security can become a weak point for cybersecurity,” Fabian explains.
He adds that while strides have been made to counteract these inter-security team vulnerabilities, more needs to be done across the board to better unite the two factions at a given company and business.
One big piece of the puzzle involves unifying the various security technologies that are at a company’s disposal. Fabian points to some enduring roadblocks. Everything from tightening budgets to staff turnover to lack of institutional knowledge about how each team functions all play a role in why a company’s physical and cyber realms can often stand siloed and disunited.
“Solutions do exist to help improve coordination between teams and departments,” Fabian stresses. “Unified security technologies can enhance collaboration, streamline communication, and improve response times. This enables cross-functional teams to respond faster, make better decisions, and work together to enhance overall security.”
What are some of the solutions? Fabian outlines some:
- Better inform and educate different departments about their respective roles: Fabian explains that both IT and physical security teams have unique, integral roles to a business’s safety. The functions that both teams perform “are critical to securing the enterprise,” Fabian adds. That being said, both sides often have no idea what the other does. In many cases, smaller teams within these larger departments are often unaware about one another’s specific missions. In order to answer the demands placed on a company by modern threats, better training and education has to be put in place to ensure these various teams understand what one another does, and collaborate to respond to various threats and concerns as cohesive units that fit a larger whole.
- Implement collaborative tools: In order to overcome these siloed approaches to security, Fabian writes that a firm has to introduce tools that can facilitate clear collaboration. “Organizations need effective tools to filter out the noise and ensure that the right people get the information that’s relevant to them every time,” he explains. “There are tools available to help teams collaborate effectively, stay accountable for completing tasks, and keep track of what’s been done while maintaining departmental goals and objectives.”
- Embrace automation: Among his many recommendations, Fabian says that companies can’t shy away from automation. He uses the example of traditional public schools. In K-12 schools, the individual monitoring a security system “is often an administrator or teacher” — if an unexpected threat presents itself, is that staff member going to know how to respond accordingly? Will that person be occupied reading up on emergency protocols in real time as a threat unfolds? Fabian says technology exists that could enable protocols to be activated automatically, giving security staff and external law enforcement notice to respond when needed, lessening the demands placed on faculty and staff.
All of these recommendations point to the reality that companies of all shapes and sizes are forced to exist in a very complicated world.
The security threats of today look very different from those that presented themselves just a decade or two ago. That is why it is necessary for all security stakeholders — from the cyber to the physical security defenders — to be on the same page and work together.
For his complete list of recommendations, read the full article here.
Peter Cavicchia II 