It’s an alarming sign of our interconnected times. Pick most any day of the week and news sources are littered with both mind-blowing breaches – such as February’s hack of Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer Anthem that compromised sensitive personal information of 80 million Americans – and startup, investing and M&A land grabs for solutions and stakes in the frightening frontier of cybersecurity. In the 21st century’s version of the Wild West, instead of fingers pulling triggers to wound or kill people, they are pressing keyboards to steal private data that can ruin lives or cripple organizations. And any hardwired or wirelessly connected device or system is potentially exposed to getting caught up in the fray or being the weak link in a cyber attack – including networked physical security solutions.
Like the outbreak of a deadly global epidemic, this new era of cyber threat is moving faster than any previously seen technology-related malady. Thus, for security dealers and integrators (and manufacturers) there is no time to lose gaining the knowledge and wherewithal to identify, assess, monitor and remediate cyber-based issues. This does not mean becoming an expert on cybersecurity or radically shifting business focus. It is about understanding general concepts, implementing best practices internally, speaking intelligently to end users on the topic, and exploring new revenue opportunities through either expansion of services or partnering with others (i.e. managed service providers).
RELATED: Integrators Identify 10 Critical Cybersecurity Challenges
To allow the market to get a firm handle on what could be interpreted as an overwhelming situation inducing both panic and denial, as well as establish critical baselines from which to move forward, Security Sales & Integration has developed the Physical-Logical Security Assessment. This ground-breaking research brings to light the perceptions and realities of how integrators are adapting to IT convergence – and especially how they are being impacted by cybersecurity factors.
See charts from the Physical-Logical Security Assessment.
Conducted by EH Publishing Research in cooperation with the PSA Security Network, the project included nearly 150 respondents (mostly executive or general management) from varied company sizes and locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The qualifying question: Does your company install, design or specify electronic security systems, products and/or solutions that connect to or run over computer networks? More than 30 questions were posed, most requesting ratings on a 1-10 scale. They covered a range of crucial considerations, including products, liability, insurance, contracts, training, the cloud and more.
The results could be interpreted as generally positive in that they indicate a recognition of shortcomings and the willingness to address them. The most ominous finding: The competency of security integrators to guard against and be prepared for cybersecurity issues received the lowest rating, in conjunction with one of the highest ratings being that the worst cyber breaches are yet to come.
Click here to view SSI‘s 2015 Physical-Logical Security Assessment.
