One Key Ingredient To Good Security
Monday, February 15, 2010 11:00I have written numerous articles covering the different elements and aspects of security, but one issue I have never touched on is the importance of having quality information to make good security decisions for your business. Quality or complete information is key to any business decision including security issues, but most businesses fail to track security incidents or issues at their company. I have worked with a lot of small and medium-sized businesses over the years, and I have not run into one yet who does.
Most companies track business-related information such as inventory, sales, marketing, cost per customer, etc. This is all important information to know so that you can make informed decisions regarding expanding, growing, or investing in your business. Likewise, protecting your business requires gathering and analyzing security-related information.
Key Security Ingredient
This key ingredient of good security applies no matter if you are trying to protect your business against computer security-related threats such as business espionage, hacking, and information theft or physical security-related threats such as robbery, theft and burglary. Without good information, you cannot spend your limited resources wisely to protect your business. You need to know what the problem is before you can determine a solution. I see many businesses implement a security measure, then call me after they discover that the security protection they implemented was not effective. When I go into situations like this, I usually always start off by asking what type of security issues they have experienced as well as what they are trying to protect their business from. These details are important for anyone, even a seasoned security professional, to suggest ways to adequately protect your business.
What Type of Security Information?
This article is not a self-promotion for this site even though we try to be a good source of business security information. The security information we provide on this site will help guide you in implementing adequate security for your business, but the type of security information I am talking about in this article is site-specific information for your business. This requires you to keep track of security (computer or physical) incidents as they occur. Can you, if someone asked, recall the details of a burglary or a data loss that occurred last year? I don’t know about you, but sometimes just remembering the details of what happened last week is to much for me. To keep track of the details, set up a database or some other tracking mechanism where you can record actual security incidents as well as any suspicious activity or close calls. Close calls are usually incidents such as an attempted car theft in your parking lot in which the thief was unsuccessful. This database will provide you with important information or patterns that indicate additional security may be needed in your business.
Other sources of local security information can also be used to make good security decisions for your business. These include crime statistics from your local police department. I have used local police crime statistics a number of times when trying to determine potential security problems or threats to a business. Another possible source is to network with other similar types of businesses in your area and see what security issues they have experienced. Find out what has worked for them. Once you have setup such a network, you can even go as far as finding a method for each business in the network to contact the others when they experience a security issue. This way the other businesses in the network can be aware of current local security issues and take steps to prevent or reduce the chance of such a security incident occurring at their own place of business.
What Should I Do?
There are many other sources of security information, but limit yourself to what really helps protect your business.
Business Security Information is a good source for topics covering a variety of security issues without you having to scour the internet or other sources for this information (now that was self-promotion), but also look to local sources of crime information such as your local police and other similar types of businesses in your area. Most importantly, keep track of security issues and close calls at your own business.
If you have thoughts or comments, please leave them using the comment form at the end of this article.
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