Tips for Improving Physical Security in Your Organization

Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year by companies all over the world to secure mission-critical digital investments and provide the necessary protection to keep them safe from external cyber-attacks. This is a must-do and one of the most important best practices advised for all organisations. The factor of physical security, on the other hand, is frequently ignored or undervalued.

Physical security is frequently characterised as the safeguarding of personnel, hardware, software, networks, and data against physical acts and occurrences that could result in substantial loss or damage to an organisation. Physical security is a critical business practice with a variety of objectives: preventing unauthorised individuals from accessing a business and causing harm, protecting intellectual property from corporate espionage, and reducing workplace violence, to name a few.

Physical security must now be considered a major pillar of any cybersecurity plan. The quality of each component’s implementation, improvement, and maintenance is generally credited to the success of an organization’s physical security programme.

As business leaders consider the following tips to improve organizational physical security:

Establish physical security perimeters 

To safeguard an organization’s facilities, barriers such as walls, card-controlled entrance doors, and staffed reception desks should be used. This is especially important in locations where sensitive information is stored or processed, as well as the information systems that process or manage that data. Prior to granting access to data centres or other high-risk places, an additional layer of physical access requests and permissions should be required. When not in use, information systems should be kept in rooms with locked doors and windows. External safeguards should also be considered, particularly for workplaces and other ground-level locations.

Ensure physical entry controls are in place

Only authorised people should be allowed access to secure areas, which should be safeguarded by proper entrance controls. To detect potential physical security issues, physical access to premises where information systems are housed should be monitored using physical intrusion alarms and surveillance devices. At least once a quarter, physical access logs should be checked. When prospective events are detected, reviews should be conducted. If a physical security incident is discovered, incident response reports should detail all efforts taken to address it. Individual physical access to sensitive places should be monitored using video cameras or other access control methods, which should be installed and secured.

Implement external and environmental threat protection

To defend the organisation, physical protection against fires, floods, earthquakes, explosions, civil unrest, and other types of natural or man-made disasters should be undertaken. These controls can be used to protect information systems and individuals once they’ve been defined. Fire detectors and alarms that are activated by smoke or heat should be installed throughout facilities, and appropriate fire suppression equipment, such as sprinklers, should be installed within secure areas containing information systems.

To identify water leaks or possible floods, water or moisture detection devices should be installed in dropped ceilings and raised floors. Master shutoff valves should be installed, accessible, and working properly to protect information systems from harm caused by water leakage.

Provide for safe equipment placement and protection

Systems and gadgets containing sensitive information should be kept in secure locations. Protecting and securing equipment reduces the possibility of unauthorised access and reduces the risk of environmental threats and hazards. The performance capabilities of supporting utilities can be impacted by adding new infrastructure devices, servers, or other systems and tools. Before installation, enterprise security professionals should conduct a test to check that the supporting tools and utilities are capable of supporting the new infrastructure or other hardware devices. Wireless access points, gateways, network hardware, communications hardware, and telecommunication wires should all have physical access restrictions.

Manage supporting utilities

Electricity, natural gas, water supply, sewage, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) should all be sufficient for the systems and workers they support. These utilities require an electrical supply that meets the power requirements set forth by the equipment makers. To facilitate the orderly shutdown of equipment that supports vital business processes, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) should be installed. Emergency lighting should be installed and tested on a regular basis to ensure that it functions properly in the event of a power outage. To assist a speedy power down in the event of an emergency, emergency power-off switches should be situated near emergency exits in data centres and equipment rooms.

Provide security for power and telecommunications cabling

Interception, interference, and damage to power and telecommunications cabling that supports information systems or transfers data should be avoided. To avoid potential handling errors, such as unintentional unplugging or relocation of improper patching or network cables, enterprise security teams should employ readily detectable cable labelling. Within an organization’s premises, physical access to information system distribution and transmission lines should be regulated. To avoid unintended errors, take the effort to verify that wires are labelled and neatly organised. A short-term initiative to fix cabling today will help avoid a slew of problems in the future.

Secure information assets while off-premises

Without prior authorization, computers, peripherals, papers, reports, software, or other information assets belonging to an organisation should not be transported offsite. On all computers, security professionals should use full-disk encryption. Even when they are stored off-site, an organization’s information assets remain on their own. Family members and friends should not be allowed to use these assets, according to personnel. Because information is improperly viewed by unauthorised audiences, this unlawful usage may pose not only technical problems but also possible hazards to the confidentiality of data stored on devices. All employees must be held accountable for all acts taken on or with the information assets that have been assigned to them.

Protect physical media in transit

Information-containing media must be protected from illegal access, misuse, and corruption while being transported outside of the organization’s physical boundaries. Before moving media offshore, it should be encrypted. It is necessary to keep a thorough inventory of any physical media that is transferred outside of the organisation. If an organisation uses offsite archiving or long-term storage, the company should ask the provider to present a recurring inventory of organisational media. Additionally, the provider’s facility’s security controls should be verified at least once a year.

Summing-up

A comprehensive physical security programme should be designed and implemented uniformly across the firm, according to security leaders. Organizations that fail to do so risk overlooking a critical security function or failing to address a physical security issue. Organizations can avoid important physical control traps for effective overall security by implementing a comprehensive physical security programme supported by all organisational stakeholders.

Often physical security is ignored when leaders think of security for their business. An effective physical security system is highly important to safeguard the most important assets of the company, its people. The safety of your employees should come first, followed by the security of your facilities and data. Physical security concerns should not be disregarded while preparing your firm for cybersecurity. Having adequate physical security measures in place can make a significant difference in terms of keeping your business and data safe.

Shergroup has a security team led by experts who can help you with the most suitable physical security solution that keeps your business protected. We offer more than physical security solutions that could interest you, so book a call with our business solutions advisors for more information. Contact us for more information via our channels |

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