Info Management

There has been a shift in the info management (IM) of business and organizations in the last few years to become a function of (either superior to or subordinate to) the IT side of things. Indeed, the creation of IM Managers and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) is the new sexy in hiring.

Unfortunately, this has taken a significant bite out of security managers and executives power, and in fact has left them holding the less sexy physical security bag, which has become woefully neglected.

The biggest problem with creating a second and third avenue of security responsibility in an organization is that it creates a fragmented approach where each department (2-3 of them) each try and secure their respective castles, with often only a thread of connectivity in the form of a corporate security policy which was likely not created to effectively coordinate separate departments.

The next biggest problem is that major resources tend to go to the sexy side (IT/IM), and the scraps are left to physical. This means that on top of the IT and IM folks likely enjoying the attention of the executive suite more than the physical guy, they also get the bulk of funds and resources and ignore the significant role physical lapses can result in which make IT and IM irrelevant.

Case in point. Super strong network security and a perfectly synchronized access plan (which never occurs by the way) will be easily outmanoeuvred by someone picking through the garbage, talking to staff after work or digging up some dirt and doing an old fashioned intelligence recruitment.

There has to be more to the IM and IT planning than just having strong capabilities in network security and managed information flows. The old fashioned approach of physical security should be the driving force still in the current security model, as things haven't actually changed, even though the pedlars of these systems may claim otherwise.

The most effective security model then is one which is drawn up by one sole security source (usually being the physical security guy), which then incorporates how information will be managed from physical to electronic and back to physical mediums. This will ensure unity of effort, reduced costs in terms of security staff, better understanding of the overall security picture by personnel and a more effective plan overall.

Blog courtesy of Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, which is a security and investigations agency in Ottawa, Canada. They are located on the web at www.elementalpi.ca