As today’s organizations need to protect themselves from increasingly sophisticated criminals, they are becoming more dependent on advanced physical security technologies, including some that tap into the power of artificial intelligence (AI). But even as the technologies organizations can use to protect themselves continue to evolve, they still require adequate hardening, regular maintenance, and comprehensive monitoring in order to ensure that they keep running consistently and securely over time.

The problem is that the amount of work involved in managing an organization’s whole fleet of physical security devices manually is typically too massive to be feasible. Even with physical security teams becoming increasingly tech-savvy, they are often left exposed to the risk that their devices will not be up and running when they’re really needed. And beyond the danger of downtime, physical security devices that aren’t managed properly can make organizations vulnerable to hackers and cyber criminals, as well as the risks of noncompliance.

To overcome these challenges and get your organization’s security needs met, it’s crucial to future-proof your physical security tech by implementing an enterprise ready device management strategy.

To shed light on how to future-proof physical security devices so that they protect organizations properly (and on why it’s so important to do so), we have published a new eBook – Future-Proof Your Physical Security Technology: How to Shield Your Organization from Physical and Cyber Threats with an Enterprise-Ready Maintenance Strategy. You can download it now to learn:

• Why advanced technologies have become so essential for physical security teams.
• How physical security and cybersecurity are becoming more interconnected, and why this makes device maintenance more critical than ever.
• Some of the main hurdles preventing many organizations’ physical security technology from protecting them adequately.
• How you can overcome those hurdles and future-proof your physical security technology with an enterprise-ready maintenance strategy.

Growing risks, tech-savvy criminals, and high stakes

Today’s physical security teams are up against a wide range of risks. While some criminals are driven by financial incentives, others are motivated by ideology and other factors. Global conflicts, climate change, inflation, and the rapid development of AI all contribute to geopolitical instability, heightening those risks. And 2024 is a particularly unpredictable year, with many national elections occurring around the world.

Also adding to the challenges facing physical security teams is the reality that criminals are getting more sophisticated. The line between physical security and cybersecurity is becoming increasingly blurred, as the danger of cyber-physical attacks (in which criminals carry out a cyberattack targeting physical infrastructure) grows. Organizations also need to worry about the risk of threat actors – who may be insiders – physically stealing or tampering with data on digital devices.

While connected physical security devices are supposed to protect organizations from these threats, in many cases organizations struggle to manage such devices properly. This increases the likelihood that a device will have downtime that goes undetected and unresolved for an extended period – heightening the risk that the device will be unavailable during a major security incident, as happened during the 2022 shooting attack in a Brooklyn subway station.

And the risks stemming from inadequately managed physical security devices go well beyond downtime. When these devices are not hardened and maintained properly, they can make it easy for hackers to carry out a data breach – a particularly expensive risk, with the average data breach in the U.S. now costing $9.36 million, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024. Inadequately managed physical security devices can also be prone to noncompliance with both their own internal (IT) requirements and relevant laws and regulations, putting their owners at risk of serious legal and financial consequences.

How future-proofing physical security tech addresses these dangers

It’s important to keep in mind just how overwhelmingly time-consuming it can be to try to manage an entire fleet of connected physical security devices manually, and how unreliable and inefficient this approach can be. It’s this reality – not a lack of awareness or attention – that typically prevents organizations from monitoring and maintaining their physical security devices effectively.

In large part, that’s because of the huge (and growing) scale of many organizations’ fleets of physical security devices and the various processes involved in maintaining them. Managing all of those devices is further complicated by their lack of uniformity – with organizations often relying on different types of devices produced by different manufacturers, running different firmware, and installed at different times. And they’re often deployed across huge areas, and sometimes spread among numerous sites in multiple countries.

In the face of these challenges, future-proofing your organization’s physical security tech gives you a reliable and efficient way to make sure that technology can be counted on to consistently keep your organization safe over time.

In addition to bolstering your physical security posture, this kind of enterprise-ready approach to device management can protect your organization from cyber threats, while helping you make sure to comply with both legal and organizational requirements. And because this approach is so much more efficient than the manual approach many organizations still try to use, it can turn device management from an impossibly time-consuming task into an achievable (and affordable) goal.

To learn how to future-proof your connected physical security devices – and why it’s so important to do so – check out Future-Proof Your Physical Security Technology: How to Shield Your Organization from Physical and Cyber Threats with an Enterprise-Ready Maintenance Strategy.