Today, it’s clearer than ever that IT and physical security teams must work together to effectively secure their organizations from physical and cyber threats. 

Still, many organizations remain worryingly vulnerable due to a gap between their physical security and IT teams. This gap is usually most glaring when it comes to maintaining and securing critical physical security devices like cameras, access control, and other systems that physical security teams rely upon to keep their organizations safe. Device downtime, compliance issues, and cyber vulnerabilities can become a significant headache and security threat for both departments.

How has this gap become such a risk to organizations’ security? In light of that risk, how can you empower your organization’s IT and physical security teams to work together and manage your connected physical security devices optimally? To answer these questions and more, we recently teamed up with Salient for a webinar on bridging the gap between IT and physical security. 

How the gap has developed and put organizations’ security at risk

The world of physical security has changed significantly over the past two decades or so, particularly when it comes to technology. However, within countless organizations, the ways that physical security and IT teams work with physical security devices have not adapted sufficiently to this new reality. 

When security cameras and other physical security devices were analog, they could run mostly independently—with little or no need for network connectivity, IP-based management tools, or device maintenance requiring IT professionals. But as physical security has shifted towards connected IP-based devices, they rely heavily on networks, management systems, and a wide variety of advanced technologies (for example, AI-powered tools for analyzing video surveillance) resulting in more complexity.

As a result, managing connected physical security devices now requires the active involvement of both physical security and IT teams. But while each team has capabilities that the other one lacks, the lack of a common and industry-standard approach to managing IT systems and physical security devices often results in significant compliance, availability, and security gaps that can severely expose the business, both legally and financially. 

The Cyber threat is significant and growing. Without the ability to adequately harden and maintain connected physical security devices while achieving regulatory and organizational compliance, organizations are exposed to cybercrime, penalties, and legal action. 

Learning to bridge the gap

Given what’s at stake in terms of both physical security and cybersecurity, it’s critically important for organizations to bridge this gap and improve the management of their physical security devices. 

To overcome this challenging situation, organizations can leverage innovative technologies to simplify the management of physical security devices for both physical security and IT teams. This will empower both types of teams to fulfill their respective responsibilities more effectively.

At the same time, organizations need to improve communication, cooperation, and collaboration between IT and physical security teams to manage their physical security devices in an enterprise-ready way. Technology will inevitably play a central role here, but making this leap also often requires deeper changes to how physical security and IT teams work together. 

By using the right combination of technological innovation and organizational change, organizations can close the gap between physical security and IT teams, helping both teams manage their physical security devices reliably, efficiently, and cost-effectively.

To learn how your organization’s physical security and IT teams can work together to improve your physical security and cybersecurity through streamlined device management, watch the on-demand video of our recent webinar, Bridging the Gap Between IT and Physical Security.