At the recent 2023 Global Security Exchange conference, leading experts in the field convened to share their best practices, shedding a spotlight on today’s trends that are driving the greater security sector.
One common theme that emerged is one that security professionals from businesses both large and small should make note of — a robust physical security strategy has to be proactive, not reactive.
‘There’s always some crisis’
Recently, BizTech Magazine’s Rebecca Torchia covered the conference, outlining the range of perspectives from this year’s conference.
For Larry Wansley — former security director for American Airlines and the Dallas Cowboys — “not much happens until something happens.”
In other words, security professionals have to be ever vigilant with an aggressive plan in place. They can’t be passive, waiting for a potential breach. Wansley revealed that the American Airlines headquarters had lax standards until someone tried to attack the company’s chairman.
“Right after that, we got checkpoints. We got biometrics. We got everything that I had been trying to get for a long time,” he recalled. “There’s always some crisis, some situation, that drives the response.”
Training is key
Torchia reports that Janet Lawless, CEO and founder of the Center for Threat Intelligence, discussed why it’s necessary that everyone on a security team stays abreast of the top threats of the day.
She said that bad actors have better funding and more comprehensive criminal networks to carry out breaches than in past decades. To combat this, personnel training has to be front and center. That being said, Lawless warned that “many organizations feel hindered by a lack of security funding,” Torchia reports.
Lawless pointed to the very common sense — but often forgotten — recommendation that employees at any company turn off their work computers and devices when they are away from their desks. Sensitive data are left open and accessible to criminals who enter often-deserted offices.
“Run background checks on everyone, and train everyone to take things off their desk,” Lawless stressed.
Keep tech up to date
Outside of these tried and true recommendations, Torchia highlighted the fact that many of the event’s speakers emphasized just how crucial it is that businesses invest in the most advanced security technologies.
Regular audits must be performed to ensure everything is updated. Lawless pointed to the fact that many surveillance cameras are poorly secured — it’s incredibly easy for an intruder to physically move a camera away from doors and points of entry. If leaders in a company invest in technology, then they must maintain it.
From going on the offensive against criminals to emphasizing staff training to updating old technologies, what was the pervading theme of the conference? All businesses must have dynamic and confident physical security approaches to keep data and personnel safe.