Research: Cybersecurity Remains Top Concern for Physical Security Professionals
As cybersecurity awareness month continues to be a focus of discussion in October, new research conducted by Genetec, technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions, shows that cybersecurity remains a top concern for physical security professionals going into 2023.
Based on insights from over 3,700 physical security leaders from around the world, the report revealed that almost half (49%) of the organizations surveyed had activated an improved cybersecurity strategy this year, and more than a third of all respondents (36%) are looking to invest in cybersecurity-related tools to improve their physical security environment in the next 12 months.
When asked about the challenges faced when managing employee and visitor safety, more than half of the organizations selected cybersecurity as their main challenge. This was particularly evident for organizations with over 100,000 employees, with 62.3% of them indicating that cybersecurity was their top challenge, compared to 52.1% for companies with under 100,000 employees.
Of the many capabilities related to cybersecurity and data protection deployed by physical security teams in the last year, cyber-hardening of physical security hardware and access control management were the most popular, with 40% of respondents implementing new measures targeting those capabilities.
“It’s reassuring to see physical security professionals prioritizing their organization’s cyber security posture,” said Mathieu Chevalier, Principal Security Architect at Genetec. “As the threat landscape continues to evolve, leading with a defense in depth strategy remains the best game plan that an organization can have. Businesses will need to put in place cybersecurity best practices and choose technology partners who offer higher levels of automation to stay on top of potential threats. They will also need to scrutinize their entire supply chain and demand continuous verification, rather than just hardening networks and systems.”
Genetec Inc. surveyed physical security professionals from August 25 to September 21, 2022. Following a review of submissions, 3,711 respondents were included in the sample for analysis.