While there are plenty of reports telling businesses that three-quarters of them aren’t prepared for a cyberattack, there are even fewer talking about physical threats.
Whether it’s violence, loss of inventory, or an insider IT issue, physical pen testing is as important as digital pen testing. If you don’t know what physical security changes you should be making, you won’t be ready when something bad happens.
Here are things that physical security professionals will look at when they visit your facility.
They Want to See a Team Effort
Before your security experts start looking at your facility, they’re going to want to get everyone on board for the effort. Staff and upper management need to be a part of protecting your facility. If they’re not, it’s hard for everyone to take ownership of the safety of your company.
Everyone should be offered training and coaching from day one. These courses or meetings allow everyone to have some situational awareness. They can start developing a better understanding of the potential threats that they face and the ones that the company faces.
The unfortunate reality of these times is that there have to be efforts in place to prepare for violence at the workplace. Proper training will minimize the impact of these events and even avoid them altogether.
Make sure your management is leading by example through training and policies. When they take an active role, everyone will see the importance. It’s far more likely that everyone will follow through when they see leadership taking a leading role in physical penetration testing.
Work From the Outside In
If you want to create a truly secure facility, you need to ensure that the security of your facility begins from the inside. Exterior security will be influenced by what’s done on the inside.
If there’s crime near your workplace, you can ensure that you’re not impacted by it by securing the interior.
Your most important assets are the people who work for you. The more you do to protect them, the more that will trickle down to the rest of your business. Your inventory and equipment will be safe when you make sure that the people who work for you are also safe.
Consider exterior fencing and digital security cameras. If you’re not tracking these elements of your facility, these will be the first and most obvious things that your physical penetration testers will notice. Rather than waste their time and yours with suggestions like “more security officers” and “emergency call boxes”, tick these items off in advance.
Who Has Access?
The next thing that your physical pen testers are going to look at is who has access to your facility and the most important areas of your facility. Just because you’ve never had a problem with unauthorized access doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be managing it. With the help of modern scanning and card reading systems, you can create specialized access extended to individual people.
This ensures the safety of employees in places with dangerous equipment. It also ensures the safety of your business in places with massive data centers on-site.
Proximity cards and optical turnstiles can help prevent or afford access to the right people. With security cameras and alarm systems to let you know when someone has breached a space, you can keep track of everything.
Physical pen testers will look at the devices you’re using to track this information. If you’re not using mobile devices or tablets, they’ll encourage you to allow your security to be more agile. Not only will you be more quickly alerted to what’s going on, but you can stay up to date as you run toward a security issue.
When Was Your Last Assessment?
Any security expert worth their salt will ask when your last security assessment was. It might be the first question they ask. While they can find lots of issues in your facility, looking at your data can help to inform their decisions.
The world is constantly shifting and upgrades are constantly necessary no matter what industry you’re in. The security system that you installed a year ago might be obsolete a year from now.
Your physical penetration tester is there to be an outside pair of eyes on your facility. They’ll be able to identify lots of potential issues but if you’re not also looking at these things, you make that project take a lot longer.
Your current precautions will influence what they recommend and how you should prepare your facility for the future. Keeping track of best practices is also a way to ensure that you’re making an effort to maintain a secure facility at all times. Allow them to be a guide that you use moving forward.
They’ll Look For Insider Issues
Your first instinct should be to trust your staff. However, there’s no denying that many of the biggest security breaches in a company come from insider threats.
By installing simple balanced magnetic switches on doors that not everyone should have access to, you can keep your staff from secure sites. It’s more likely that someone is going to wander into a space they shouldn’t be in from inside your facility than from off the street.
Employees should also be prepared to report issues related to violence or improper use of facilities. If they can report this concerning behavior without feeling self-conscious or like they could be implicated, they’ll be more forthcoming.
Physical Pen Testing Keeps People Safe
Your goal as a facility manager or owner of a business is to keep your employees safe. With physical pen testing experts offering recommendations, you’re sure to do just that.
Make sure you bookmark our page for more important business insights to ensure you keep everyone happy at work.
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