Big data, IoT, business process management, and sophisticated monitoring aim to reduce risk and improve security, resource management, and decision-making at all levels of government and public transportation.
Introduction
In many ways, a perfect storm has been brewing in the physical security space for quite some time. Owners and administrators of IP security systems face ever-growing resource demands and are experiencing significant management and support challenges daily. Converging threats and burdensome complexity continue to menace organizations that are simply unprepared to face such threats. While IT professionals often focus on data protection and headline-grabbing cyber threats, security professionals must do what they can to protect property and people as well as ensure secure access and maintenance of high-value video.
Meanwhile, the dizzying pace at which organizations adopt emerging technologies continues to generate new challenges. Security professionals are faced with safeguarding overly cumbersome infrastructure with fewer resources. These expanding responsibilities are simply outpacing the ability of resources to respond to and control threats. In addition, technology and resource gaps are allowing preventable security breaches and failures to occur, exposing organizations to both known and unknown threats.
Now, more than ever, it is imperative that security and IT teams collaborate and innovate. A holistic approach must be taken to manage and secure the corporate IT and security networks. Every organization needs a deliberate, organized approach to IT infrastructure that addresses these gaps without adding more people to the payroll.
Top 3 Key Issues Facing Government and Public Sector IT and Security Teams
Scary Fact: Did you know that on average 3%-5% of security devices on unmonitored security networks are offline, misconfigured, or malfunctioning and NO ONE knows about it?
#1 Sensitive Data
Every day across the nation, security teams along with local police and fire departments are responsible for the overall safety and transportation of the public. In addition, authorities and public institutions must manage the sensitive data of their citizens. All these teams must consistently be ready for action.
Firewalls, virus scanners, and backup systems are the standard building blocks of an integrated security concept. Add to that physical security, and now you need surveillance equipment, access control, and communication devices, along with backup systems. Now, shouldn’t you also ensure that all these systems also work reliably?
A comprehensive monitoring solution can and should include all these factors in the monitoring process.
#2 Many distributed locations
The best approach to monitoring IT and Security networks is to deploy software designed to continuously collect health and performance data on all IT infrastructure at every location. Then have it send the data in an encrypted form to a central instance that is responsible for the complete evaluation and storage of data. This keeps costs low and expenses for operation and maintenance manageable, while at the same time ensuring IT and Security networks are centrally monitored.
#3 Heterogeneous IT landscapes
Integration of locations, hardware, and software, is heterogeneous. Devices and applications offer their own monitoring tools and insight; however, they contribute little to an overview of the entire IT environment. This calls for a universal solution that can monitor devices and applications independently of manufacturers as well as integrate special solutions into the overall monitoring process. The decisive factors here are, on the one hand, the standardization of the solution in order to keep the costs low and, on the other hand, the flexibility to connect existing special solutions via suitable interfaces.
How monitoring enhances security and technical possibilities
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