All's quiet at the office this week. With the heat wave, even the CIT is telecommuting and only a skeleton staff is on duty. It's a field day for hackers attempting a full-bore system penetration. After all, less traffic and bandwidth is being consumed by normal operations and it's available to them as they try to defeat your protection!
Today, the CEO, never one to be out-of-touch, has his Android securely clipped to his belt as he ushers his kids and their friends onto the dock for a long-promised charter fishing expedition. In the rush about 50 people are getting on-board with them. It's an hour before he realizes the phone has been lifted from his waist.
One executive's youngster has posted the family's complete travel itinerary on Facebook and has been tweeting every day about scheduled activities for the holiday. Not everyone who's "friended" the child and "follows" the tweets is just curious. For security managers, it's no holiday season!
In consulting with security experts around the globe, here is the short list of considerations that, if you share with people at your organization, can help make the entire vacation season more secure:
* It's a better security move not to curtail home mail delivery when you're travelling. Rather, have a neighbor pick it up from your mailbox each day.
* Most of us have cell phones with built-in cameras and we don't disable the built-in GPS functions. That means we can literally be "located" via pictures we transmit from these devices. If holiday travels take you (and your family) to any of dozens of places where kidnappings and hold-ups are prevalent, skip emailing or posting those cell phone photos! They can wait until everyone is home and safe!
* Not working today? Take a disposable phone or secondary phone with you, not the device that has all your critical contact information. After all, there really are only a few essential numbers -those contacts you require even when you're "off duty."
* We tend to use our portable devices as portable offices, storing critical information so we have it at our fingertips. Maybe we don't need to take those devices with us 24/7 especially when going to places where they will be hard to secure. (And have you activated: "Find My Phone" or its equivalent for your device?)
* There is no down-time when it comes to access control. Security directors will want to reinforce this with front desk personnel who may feel more relaxed during summer months. They wear short-sleeves in July and August, but we don't want anyone to short-circuit procedures. Whoever is doing routine or special maintenance or repairs has to be thoroughly screened. The organization's systems may be vulnerable from the "cloud" but we can limit how vulnerable they are in our physical locales.
* We all know the drill about lost and stolen lap tops and iPads. What we often forget is that USB drives and SD cards (now holding 64GB and more) can be the target. They're easy to misplace, get picked from a pocket or taken along with the key ring onto which we've attached them. They're little devices that can create big problems!
For more tips and additional information about simple ways to implement better summer security for your organization, give us a call at Doyle Security Services (DSS) at 877-377-7749 or visit us online at www.dss-securitysolutions.com
We stand ready to be of service.
Mario Doyle, CPP, is chief operating officer for Doyle Security Services, Valley Stream, N.Y. Tags: