Modern physical security devices are more powerful and effective than ever - but also much more vulnerable to a wide variety of potential cyber attacks. As a result, physical security teams today are expected to ensure their devices are cyber protected, in-line with IT standards.
Given the enormous potential costs of vulnerabilities in your physical security devices, what practical steps can physical security teams take to ensure maximum protection against hackers and other cyber threats?
The following are seven key pillars to achieving cyber protection for your physical security devices.
Before you can secure your physical security devices, you need to know what devices are on your network in the first place. To put it simply: you can't protect what you can't see.
Asset mapping is the process of discovering, identifying, and documenting all physical security devices within your infrastructure. This includes gathering critical information such as device type, model, firmware version, IP address, and physical location. By having a comprehensive understanding of your device fleet, you can better monitor and manage the security of each device. Making this information accessible will have a lot of benefits beyond cybersecurity as well, helping to reduce downtime and other issues.
This information is usually available somewhere – the challenge is consolidating all of it from different vendors in one, easily-accessible location, as excessive silos impede device visibility even when the information is technically available.
Steps for Effective Asset Mapping:
Identifying and managing vulnerabilities in your physical security devices is crucial for preventing cyber attacks. This involves regularly scanning for known vulnerabilities and suspicious activities, assessing potential threats, and ensuring this information reaches the right people as soon as possible. By proactively identifying vulnerabilities, you can take steps to mitigate them before they are exploited by cybercriminals.
Steps for Vulnerability Management:
Firmware upgrades are essential for maintaining the security (and functionality) of your physical security devices. Keeping firmware up to date is a critical aspect of device security, helping to protect against known vulnerabilities.
Manufacturers regularly release updates to patch vulnerabilities and improve performance, yet all too often physical security devices are left operating on old or obsolete firmware due to the difficulties in regularly upgrading firmware at scale. Some studies have shown that up to 70% of physical security devices are running outdated firmware.
Steps for Firmware Upgrades:
Device hardening involves configuring your physical security devices to reduce their attack surface and enhance their security posture. Hardening your devices helps to close potential entry points and makes it more difficult for attackers to compromise your systems.
The physical security technology ecosystem is significantly more complex than the IT ecosystem in this regard. Nevertheless, while the specific hardening policies may differ across manufacturers, the process will usually follow a similar pattern.
Steps for Device Hardening:
Regularly rotating passwords on your physical security devices is a critical measure to prevent unauthorized access. Default or outdated passwords can be easily exploited by cybercriminals, for example through brute force dictionary-search attacks. By regularly updating passwords, you can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access to your devices.
Steps for Password Rotations:
SSL and 802.1x certificates are essential for securing communications between your physical security devices and other network components. Proper certificate management ensures that data transmitted is encrypted and secure, and helps to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of your physical security device communications.
Steps for Certificate Management:
Replacing outdated physical security devices before they reach their End Of Service is also critical to ensuring they are protected against cyber threats. A device that has reached its end of service (EOS) will no longer receive any support from its manufacturer. This means that no more bug fixes and vulnerability patches will be made available – leaving such devices exposed to cybersecurity risks (as well as more likely to malfunction and directly compromise your organization's physical security).
Steps for End Of Service Planning:
By following these practical steps, physical security teams can significantly enhance the cybersecurity posture of their devices, protecting them from potential cyber attacks.
While cyber security is a constant battle, prioritizing these cybersecurity measures ensures that physical security devices do not become vulnerabilities within the broader network, thereby safeguarding the entire organization's operations and data.