Today’s security and threat landscape is evolving rapidly. As threat actors become increasingly sophisticated, organizations are being compelled to re-evaluate their security structures to adopt a more proactive security stand. Physical security is now being complemented with digital solutions to build powerful security postures that make security air-tight and increase threat responsiveness when protecting physical assets and sensitive areas.
In this context, the role of the CSO and the CISO become inextricably interlinked especially as the near-universal digitalization of the security space. Today, the use of physical security systems such as digital cameras, devices, fences, etc. are being employed to improve intrusion detection and elevate perimeter security. These physical assets are all connected to a central IT network in big and small ways.
The role of digitalization is increasing even more as technology advances open up more opportunities to tackle threats more proactively. Sophisticated technology advances in LiDAR, OFC, sensors, radar technology and more are creating avenues to elevate the security of large, sensitive, and high-profile physical spaces.
The security of industries such as airports, defence sites, power plants, and civil and critical infrastructure needs constant protection from threats like vandalism, theft, and attacks. Any security gaps can impact people’s lives, public health, the economy, and national and global security.
Security systems as such need to establish a seamless and interconnected security web using advanced technologies to provide intelligent alerts, both predictive and real-time across verticals, scenarios, and environmental conditions.
The roles of CSOs and CISOs also seem like they are merging as most security solutions also begin to have significant cloud footprints. The cloud has been instrumental in driving effective monitoring and response capabilities along with ensuring ease of management. Organizations are also leveraging data from the entire sensor and security network for powerful analytics that unleash deep insights which enhances the security posture to make it more impenetrable and robust.
Today’s evolving threat landscape needs the entire security network comprising of physical security, sensors, and software to deliver greater intelligence by taking a more holistic approach to security. A disjointed technology infrastructure impedes the organization's ability to better detect, react, and recover from sophisticated security threats.
Security solutions now have to provide better visibility and enhance overall resilience against threats regardless of their nature. They also need to detect and react to the right signals, prevent false alarms, and improve situational knowledge by pinpointing the exact point of intrusion.
As the adoption of specialized security solutions increases and multiple solutions and technologies invade the market, organizations need to evaluate the capabilities of their security vendors. The plethora of solutions and advanced technologies that are now available have to be organized and arranged together to create a coherent and integrated security solution meant to improve threat responsiveness and intelligence.
The role of the CSO and the CISO starts to merge as the devices and hardware used to improve security also become possible points of vulnerability.
Traditionally, organizations and security teams need a lot of bodies to protect physical infrastructure.Technology has to be employed most skillfully to make sure that cumbersome, slow-moving, and highly reactive security cost centres become more agile, responsive, and intelligent to reduce the potential time to remediate a vulnerability or intrusion attempt.
Security vendors now need to position themselves as partners and demonstrate deep domain knowledge and technical know-how to deliver tailor-made solutions that meet specific security requirements. CSOs now need to constantly look at ways to innovate security service offerings and solutions to address the evolving challenges of key industries in a growing threat landscape.
The role of the CSO and the CISO also begins to overlap as these solutions demand stringent quality control and follow global best practices. The CSO has to be on top of a lot of information and identify ways to increase resilience as the physical and digital worlds converge. At one point in time, the person in charge of physical security monitored the same using keys and patrolling. Today, the access keys have become electronic and IoT devices, sensors, cameras, etc, are becoming the security systems.
Organizations are also getting heavily invested in elevating intelligence to improve security. A combination of industry experts, certified engineers, and technicians, with real-life local expertise coupled with sophisticated technology to make security impregnable. Robust installation, commissioning, training, and ongoing maintenance and CAMC services also become a part of the security fabric, further merging the role of the CSO and CISO.
The role of system integration cannot be overstated in elevating security. The security systems have to employ a multi-layered approach and use the right combination of sensors, resources, and automation. They also need to ensure the right integrations as sensor integrations change according to the threat levels.
Impeccable system integration becomes imperative to remove silos and allow data to be collected and used freely for greater insights. These state-of-the-art security solutions deployed on borders, defence establishments, industries, and critical infrastructure need an intelligent command and control system to increase responsiveness and elevate threat intelligence.
These systems need to be hooked to a central monitoring system that is powered by advanced technology, deep learning, and discernment algorithms. These technologies analyze the inputs from each sensor in the entire sensor network to drive critical decisions confidently.
As technologies advance and physical security becomes increasingly dependent on digital technologies the roles of the CISO and the CSO become more and more interlinked especially as the employment of sensors and digital tools makes them subject to the same policies and procedures that apply to the rest of the IT infrastructure. It will be interesting to see how these roles evolve as our world continues to change.