RiskXtraJune2019

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RISKXtra
The Dawn of Intelligent and
Predictive Security
When did your
business last
undertake a security
risk assessment? How
do you evaluate
threats or
vulnerabilities? Are
there any gaps in your
security measures? Do
you have full
confidence in the
security technologies
that your business
employs? Omar Abu-
Rish explains why, as
threats continue to
grow and evolve,
today’s organisations
need intelligence on
all of the risks which
might impact their
day-to-day operations
In today’s complex security landscape, with
businesses facing an ever-increasing array of
risks and threats, it’s important to step back
and ask yourself some serious questions like
those outlined. From crime and disorder, violent
extremism and activism through to fire risk, data
leakage and cyber theft, understanding the
threat landscape within and outside of your
organisation represents half the battle.
No matter what type of business you run, or
the vertical sector in which you operate, it’s
absolutely true to state that ‘knowledge is
power’ and, indeed, vital when it comes to
protecting the organisation’s people, property
and assets.
As businesses grow, so the risks posed to
them increase still further. That being the case,
it’s essential to regularly take a step back and
review in some degree of detail whether or not
your security solutions on site are pre-empting
these threats and are perfectly ready to
respond should the worst happen.
For genuine and tangible peace of mind,
organisations should be moving away from
purely reactive security – a label often ascribed
to security in UK plc over the years, given its
tendency towards conservatism with a small ‘c’
– and focus more on an integrated and fully
predictive security solution.
The foundation of predictive security stems
from digitisation. There’s now an opportunity to
gather and use large amounts of data from
internal sources and combine these with
external information including crime statistics
and advanced analytics that can ultimately
assist businesses to predict and then prevent
criminal activity before it’s allowed to happen.
This goes right to the very heart of predictive
security – mitigate risks before they become
threats and act in real-time to protect your
organisation when needed.
Accessing the right information and
understanding how it fits into the overall
security landscape is key to successful
corporate risk management.
Effective corporate risk management should
follow a three-step process: evaluate, analyse
and then plan. In the first instance, we need to
use risk-based methodologies, detailed
operational analysis and a Best-in-Class
evaluation platform in order to evaluate the
current security service.
Second, combine on-site equipment – such
as security sensors and surveillance cameras –
with historical and real-time data as well as
external crime and incident data sources with a
view towards analysing and defining the
business’ unique risk profile.
Finally, by actively combining protective
security services with the very best of today’s
intelligence technology, you can then plan and
implement a total security solution purposedesigned
to keep your organisation safe.
Security intelligence services
Billions of people worldwide have access to the
Internet which they use as a platform for
communicating and socialising. From a security
perspective, there has been a greater focus on
online platforms over the last few years in order
to help combat potential new threats.
Law enforcement agencies have used open
source investigation for years, gathering
valuable intelligence from online platforms in a
bid to keep members of the public safe from
harm. Of late, the security business sector has
itself recognised the value of open source
investigation and duly established its own inhouse
intelligence teams.
From a business perspective, understanding
and responding to online data of this nature
can seem daunting, if not impossible. After all,
if we look at social media as just one source of
information, there are millions of posts shared
every second right across the world. Social
media platforms are a primary source of
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