Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. One of your chief concerns as a business owner is its security. Optimizing this your security will ensure your business’s operations and profits. The following contributed post is entitled, How to Turn Your Business Premises Into a Fortress.
* * *
Let’s face it: all business owners want to ensure their premises are as secure as possible. For some businesses, physical and digital security is of utmost importance if they deal with extremely valuable resources, tangible or otherwise.
With that in mind, those organizations want to ensure their physical premises are virtually impenetrable by unauthorized persons. You’re likely reading this because you want to ensure that your building is fully protected 24/7. Here’s what you can do:
Make Your Security Obvious
Did you know that many burglaries only occur due to opportunity? If a thief sees easy access to valuable items in a property, they will strike without a second thought. However, if they spot plenty of security, they’ll look for another target elsewhere.
That’s why it makes sense to have security measures in place that are obvious to members of the public. At a minimum, your business security should include internal and external security cameras monitoring all entry and exit points 24 hours a day.
You should also strongly consider having a security team that makes their presence known to the general public. Such measures alone are enough to ward off the vast majority of security threats.
Install Access Control Systems in All Rooms
There’s no denying that the oldest access control systems ever used are locks and keys. However, the trouble with those traditional ways of protecting properties is they are very easily bypassed – even by people with little to no tools.
Thankfully, technology provides many ways to install state-of-the-art access control systems for all rooms at your premises. For example, you can have installed key card systems where authorized employees wave a security key card at a reader.
If you’re looking for a more advanced technology solution, you could instead opt for biometric access control systems. Those systems can use an employee’s fingerprint to allow access, or they can conduct retina scans from one of their eyes.
Another example is voice recognition. It’s possible to use multiple access control systems at once for extra layers of security.
Make Your Secure Rooms Blast-Proof
Do you have specific rooms at your premises that must get protected at all costs? If so, you want to make sure no-one can try to gain entry to them using forcible means. You could consider making your secure rooms blast-proof.
The technology involved in making secure rooms blast-proof is similar to what gets used in bank vaults. Several layers of concrete and steel, among other materials, can ensure that your secure rooms are impenetrable – even if someone tries to blow them up!
You might be wondering what makes a room blast-proof. Aside from making the walls thick with steel and concrete, building materials can get reinforced with several micro-thin layers of mesh steel to absorb any impact.
For windows, thick bullet-proof glass like you’d see in presidential vehicles, for example, also help to absorb the force from any blasts.
Filter All Internet Traffic
Of course, you don’t have to physically gain entry to business premises if you wanted to steal something. Almost all businesses that deal with valuable and commercially sensitive resources go online from their premises.
Criminals could turn to the Internet and find vulnerabilities in a company’s Internet and network connection. Once access is possible, they could then find a way to disable access control systems and make it easy for them to gain physical access.
To that end, it’s crucial to filter all Internet traffic and prevent cyberattacks from happening. There are many ways to secure network and Internet connections:
● Enforce VPN (virtual private networking) connections for all employees going online so that all data gets encrypted;
● Installing hardware firewalls to filter all data packets and prevent malware from entering the network from Internet sources;
● Disabling wireless Internet access and enforcing Ethernet-only connections to the network and Internet.
You should also ensure that all computers used at your premises have the latest hardware. All operating systems should be up-to-date to prevent vulnerabilities from security holes at the OS layer, and all computers should have up-to-date anti-virus solutions installed.
Final Thoughts
There are many reasons why a business wants to adopt as much security as possible to protect its assets. The good news is that it’s possible to turn your organization’s building into a fortress and ensure that only authorized personnel gain access to it.
When combined with several security measures, the above examples work well and can make your building virtually impenetrable by criminals.
