The Industrialization has, on the one hand, improved production and profitability for businesses. Whereas, on the other hand, it has also raised security concerns for business owners.
Think of it this way – you own an enterprise.You’ll be holding several types of equipment, products, processes, data, and a lot more, worth millions of dollars.
Any damage or act of vandalism to these assets could be an economic threat to your business.
More so, the risks of theft and breach are always lurking around. Indeed, thieves and scammers are on the lookout for weak targets all the time.
Well, nobody is to be blamed for this situation. After all, every development comes with benefits paired with some risks and losses.
So, how do you protect your business? Or, more precisely, how do you protect your assets?
Keep reading, and you shall find your answer by the end of this article.
Level 1. On-Premises Security
Your on-premises security is your first line of defense. To protect your physical assets from theft, vandalism, and arson, you can consider some security measures.
- The first step would include identifying and measuring the security risks involved. For instance, you can check with the local authorities to enquire what types of crimes are more common in your business location.
- Once you know the security threats your business is vulnerable to, the next step should be to place appropriate security measures in place.
- You can consider some basic security precautions, regardless of the risks involved. For example, to protect against theft and vandalism, you can consider hiring security guards. Additionally, you should also regularly check all the locks and monitoring systems in place.
- You can also consider fencing the boundaries and walls surrounding your office building.
On-premises security systems can be as extensive as you may wish for them to be. For instance, you can also consider installing fire alarm systems to warn you in case of arson.
However, here’s a catch to on-premises security systems. They may help keep security threats at bay but cannot prevent them 100%. Meaning there could be some weak spots in the system that may still cost you some damage.
For instance, your security cameras depend on the internet and electrical supply. In case any of these two services are down, you may not be able to know of any illegal access or act on your business premises. And may subsequently have to bear some losses.
It is, therefore, suggested to consider business insurance to protect your finances.
Level 2. Executive Security
The next level of security comes for your most precious assets – your white-collar executives.
High-risk, unfortunately, comes in heritage to high-level personnel. For this reason, you should not ignore executive security for your top-level employees. Some other causes may include:
- Confidentiality and Discretion of information withheld by executives.
- Industrial trade secrets that executives are responsible for keeping safe.
- Sensitive and geopolitical position holders are more commonly at risk of being attacked.
- Emergency protection in case of fire, accidents, or other emergencies.
When hiring a security agency to protect your executives, you should consider some indispensable factors. Of course, for your top-tier executives, you cannot hire any agency more minuscule than the best.
- The agency should be well versed with the risks involved for the position holder, both cross-trade and within trade regions.
- The security personnel should be well trained in tactical and non-tactical defense.
- It would help if you had the security personnel to protect executives from any physical harm and identify and eliminate risks before they become a threat.
- The agency personnel should be quick in deploying any additional security measures upon detection of any threat.
Level 3. Cyber Security
Last but not least- the increasing digitalization of industries and trades are also creating new security concerns.
Every year, thousands of companies and organizations are attacked by cybercriminals. The most common reason for hacking is the ransom, followed by selling company data into the black market.
It needs no mention that any disclosure of sensitive or confidential data can harm the reputation and finances of your business.
So, how do you protect your business from cyber-attacks?
- The first and foremost thing that you can do is setting up firewalls. A firewall usually acts as the first line of defense between attackers and your business information. As the name suggests, it creates a defensive wall between unauthorized personnel and your data.
- The next thing that you can do is get a robust cybersecurity agency to monitor and control access to all your business IPs. It should help prevent any unauthorized personnel from gaining access to any sensitive trade information.
- You should also try and set up a VPN for your IP. A VPN system would ensure that only specific IP addresses can access the information on your cloud server.
- You can also go for two-step authentication for anyone logging into your company server.
- Also, consider setting up strong passwords for all your access points to local and offshore data storage. Ideally, you should avoid using any password that relates to you. In other words, think of alpha-numeric passwords paired with symbols and special characters. This should make your password nearly impossible to crack.
- Although you might already know, it is still worth mentioning here – consider a leased line for all your internet and telephonic communications. Lease lines are generally not directly connected to the mainstream web, making it even more challenging to hack into.
With intuitive yet straightforward measures, you can protect your business assets, both physically and digitally.
The Takeaway…
In a nutshell, there are hundreds of vulnerabilities that can harm your business. For all-around protection, you need to look into different spheres of your organization.
The physical security systems or the on-premises security systems are the easiest of all targets. Next comes your white-collar executives who know all internal trade secrets and business information. And last is your digital assets that store all the records for your business for day-to-day operations.
Protecting every asset of your business should be your top priority, especially if you wish for your business to thrive and last even after you are gone.
