What is Physical Security?

Physical security is all about protecting hardware, software, networks, etc., incidents such as fire, storm, natural catastrophes, theft, or terrorism that could inflict a huge loss or damage to an organization or enterprise.

Physical security is regularly ignored—and its significance undervalued—in favor of more technical threats including hacking, malware, and cyber-spying. Nevertheless, violations of physical security can be committed recklessly with a hacker having little or no technical knowledge.

Access control, surveillance and testing are the three major components of physical security.  Hindrances should be positioned in the way of possible attackers and physical sites should be toughened against accidents, attacks or environmental calamities. Also, physical sites should be supervised using surveillance cameras and warning systems, such as intrusion detection sensors, heat sensors and smoke detectors. Moreover, calamity recovery policies and events should be tested regularly to ensure protection and to decrease the time it takes to recover from unsettling man-made or natural tragedies.

The internet of things (IoT) is broadening the scope of physical security as smart devices linked to business systems through the internet may be placed outside of well-known secure perimeters. Separating these smart devices can’t be attained in the same way as those within a company’s physical borders, so device setting will play an important role in keeping equipment safe, secure and fully operational in the outside world. Suitable defenses such as tamper-proof identification tags are often sufficient to discourage the hacker or burglar and can raise the odds of an item being returned.

Importance of Physical Security

Risk treatment and valuation deals with the basics of security risk investigation. Maintaining a systematized setup to control how the company enforces information security is very important. Assets management includes appropriate safety of logistic assets and ensuring that information is rightly protected. Personnel security management ensures appropriate jobs for employees, contractors, third parties while preventing them from abusing information dispensation facilities. The organization should use perimeters and fences to defend protected areas. Protecting the equipment and safeguarding it from dangers is also very important. Power supplies and cable should be protected, while safe access to information and property should be ensured.

Nevertheless, there are countless amenities provided for physical security with a large number of benefits. First is perimeter security that comprises mantrap, fences, electric fences, gates and so on. Safe locks with keys that are difficult to match. Badges are essential for authenticating the identity of any employee. It’s important to establish the surveillance and at places that won’t expose it or allow the attacker to meddle with it. Protect any susceptible device and defend the portables, while you should secure the backups in a safe place which is difficult to access. In the event of blast, fire or electric failure, right control technique should be employed that might help protect some of the vital things in the office. A robust setup may reduce the loss of the majority of assets, data, and paraphernalia.

The great benefit is that offenders or attackers have to navigate through many layers of security to meet their objective. Consequently, it gets more difficult for them to achieve their mission. There are many approaches and equipment that are hard to scale by an attacker, have a low budget to set it and minimize security threat.

Major physical security measures

Here are some of the most essential security measures every organization should implement.

1: Lock up the server room

Since the server room is the key to your physical network, someone with physical access to the servers and other important equipment in that room can do huge damage. So, it’s essential that you should keep the server room locked at all times to avoid any untoward incident.

2: Set up surveillance

While locking up the server room is a good step to ensure security, setting up surveillance is even better. A log book for signing in and out is the most rudimentary way to achieve this, but it has many disadvantages. An authentication system combined into the locking devices, so that a smart card, token, or biometric scan is mandatory to unlock the doors, and a record is made of the identity of each individual who enters.

3: Ensure the locked room houses most susceptible devices

It’s not just the servers that you need to be cautious about. A criminal can plug a laptop into a hub and use sniffer software to take over data traveling across the network. Ensure that as several of your network devices as possible are in that locked room.

4: Use rack mount servers

Not only do rack mount servers take up less server room real estate, they are also easier to protect. Although smaller and possibly lighter than tower systems, they can simply be locked into closed racks that, once encumbered with numerous servers, can then be fastened to the floor, making the whole package almost impossible to move, let alone to steal.

5: Don’t forget the workstations

Criminals can use any leaky computer that’s linked to the network to access or remove information that’s significant to your business. Workstations at vacant desks or in empty offices or at sites easily accessible to strangers, such as the front receptionist’s desk, are mainly susceptible.

6: Keep prowlers from opening the case

Both servers and workstations should be secured from intruders who can open the case and seize the hard drive. It’s much easier to run away with a hard disk in your pocket than to carry a full tower off the building or workstation.

7: Disable the drives

If you don’t want workers replicating company information to removable media, you can deactivate or eliminate floppy drives, USB ports, and other means of linking external drives. Simply detaching the cables may not discourage technically wise workers, so some organizations even go so far as to fill ports with adhesive to permanently stop their use.

8: Protect your printers

You might think that printers do not pose a security risk, but it’s wrong. Many of today’s printers save document contents in their own on-board memories. If a criminal steals the printer and gains access to that memory, they may be able to make copies of lately printed documents. Printers should be situated in protected locations and locked down so nobody can gain access or steal them.

Conclusion

A company needs managerial, technical, and physical control to run its operations smoothly and effectively. Physical security’s chief objective is to save the assets and services of the organization. So, the primary duty of physical security is to protect employees since they are a significant asset to the company. Their security is the first priority followed by safeguarding the facilities.