Security is a priority for all of us, and it is imperative in the workplace. It can, however, be challenging to understand where to begin when you decide to secure your office, so we have helped you by compiling some questions that you can use to prepare yourself for this process.
Offices face more significant threats when it comes to security. However, it also the most overlooked aspect. Securing your office will assist in reducing any security breaches or break-ins that might occur. The threats that offices are exposed to come in many forms, like viruses or people spying on your business. For this reason, you should adequately prepare for the threats that might come your way. Below we will assist you in coming up with questions that will help you assess your office’s security needs.
- What are my critical business assets?
The most critical step in preparing to secure your office is understanding what your critical business assets are. This is important as each business has its software requirements and device configurations used to control business operations. Once you are aware of your business’ assets, you will be able to understand what kind of data security your business requires.
Your business assets can be classified in several categories: financial data, intellectual property, and physical property such as electronics and hard drives; because every company differs from the next, their lists will also vary. However, some of the most common assets will include customer and employee information, source code, servers, network devices, and other digital data. Therefore, you are to ensure that you are aware of the assets you have first before protecting them. To ensure that you do leave out any assets, you could go through the process with your IT and business management team.
- What is the value of my information?
When you have established what your most critical business assets are, you will be able to rank them according to the value that they hold. Your most valued business assets will have a higher ranking when it comes to security, as all your assets are not of equal importance.
For example, if your business mainly uses cloud applications, it would be wise to focus on investing in web applications and cloud infrastructure security. However, if you use physical data, you should focus more on protecting that data through physical security measures such as alarm systems and security cameras to prevent forced entry.
- What are some threats and vulnerabilities that exist?
Once you have ranked your business assets, you are to identify any security threats and weaknesses. Conducting a well-performed risk and threat analysis will ensure that you take note of the potential sources that could lead to assets incurring harm. By gaining a deeper understanding of the weaknesses and security threats that you might face, it will lead to you making improvements to reduce them. For example, if you have access control issues, it might lead to you experiencing forced entries, which could also lead to theft of business information.
- How can I rank my security needs based on my priorities?
Once you know the value of your assets and you have identified all the possible threats and vulnerabilities that you have, it becomes easier for you to prioritise your security needs. Ranking your security needs requires you to figure out threats based on your chances of those threats occurring. An example of this is cyber threats. Though they might be something you are at risk for, you might not be at risk for all cyber threats, such as your system being flooded with malware, as this is something you might experience once a year.
Secondly, you are to understand the chances of some vulnerabilities that your businesses have and how these could become possible threats as criminals could use them to attack you. This process is referred to as the threat/vulnerability possibility. It will help you determine the probabilities of attacks occurring as well as the impact you face as a result of the attack.
- How can I improve my current security measures?
Once you have conducted your review of assets and have a list of your threat/vulnerability possibilities, you can prepare for all the threats that you could face. When performing a security assessment, you should go through your threat/vulnerabilities list and go through all the preventative measures that you already have in place. This will assist you in understanding where you can improve your current security system. You can always improve even some of your security strengths to make them as strong as possible.
Conclusion
Going through an evaluation process before you implement any security measures for your office is the best decision that you could make. It ensures that your office is well protected, and it eliminates any vulnerabilities that you might have.
Thinking of renting an office? See the 6 Security Questions to Ask Before Renting an Office Space.
