Corporate Security Management

Challenges, Risks, and Strategies

Marko Cabric

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780128029343
• eBook ISBN: 9780128029350
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Information Management
• Index: Social Sciences

Corporate Security Management provides practical advice on efficiently and effectively protecting an organization's processes, tangible and intangible assets, and people. The book merges business and security perspectives to help transform this often conflicted relationship into a successful and sustainable partnership. It combines security doctrine, business priorities, and best practices to uniquely answer the Who, What, Where, Why, When and How of corporate security. Corporate Security Management explores the diverse structures of security organizations in different industries. It shows the crucial corporate security competencies needed and demonstrates how they blend with the competencies of the entire organization. This book shows how to identify, understand, evaluate and anticipate the specific risks that threaten enterprises and how to design successful protection strategies against them. It guides readers in developing a systematic approach to assessing, analyzing, planning, quantifying, administrating, and measuring the security function. - Addresses the often opposing objectives between the security department and the rest of the business concerning risk, protection, outsourcing, and more - Shows security managers how to develop business acumen in a corporate security environment - Analyzes the management and communication skills needed for the corporate security manager - Focuses on simplicity, logic and creativity instead of security technology - Shows the true challenges of performing security in a profit-oriented environment, suggesting ways to successfully overcome them - Illustrates the numerous security approaches and requirements in a wide variety of industries - Includes case studies, glossary, chapter objectives, discussion questions and exercises

Section 1

What: Define

Outline

Chapter 1. About Security

Chapter 2. Corporations and the Place of Corporate Security

Chapter 1

About Security

Abstract

With the speedy development of security technology, many security practitioners are caught in the trap of chasing after technology or following the technological mindset by exercising creativity to try and reinvent the essence of security. However, security is not an invented process but actually an evolution of one of the oldest natural processes, dating to the beginning of life and the instinct to protect it. Moreover, real creativity and skills lie in the ability to correctly blend and apply the essence of security in new circumstances to meet new challenges. Instead of reinventing security, we list existing principles and philosophies and arrange them in a logical order and perspective. The often neglected and certainly crucial general principles of security, together with a methodical approach to solving security issues, are a base for any further specialized hands-on engagement.

Keywords

Crime triangle; Layered defense; Means; Motive; Opportunity; Probability; Routine; Security pillars; Value; Worst-case scenario

Security and Its Essence

About Security

Instead of trying to explain security by analyzing the linguistic source of the word and its meaning, to really understand the essence of security we will concentrate more on exploring its real origins, essence, and principles. Basically, even though some other professions are believed to be the oldest ones, which might be true, security is definitely one of the oldest processes, dating to the beginning of life and the instinct to protect it.

The principles of security at the time of our distant ancestors did not change. The caveman guarded his cave with a spear while another was on the lookout on the edge of the settlement with the mission of spotting the danger at the earliest possible stage and alerting the others. Everyone in the community knew exactly what to do in case of danger and who was in charge of making the decisions.

We have the cave as the physical element of security, the spear as technology, information about the proximate danger, communication among community members, all members of the community as the human element and procedures, both as division of tasks in routine as well as emergency procedures, and the community chief as the management. If any of the elements were missing, the system would not work properly.

Then, as well as now, we had the seven pillars of security:

• Physical

• Technical

• Human

• Information

• Communication

• Procedures

• Management (control)

What changed over time is not the essence of security but its technology.

Now that we have cleared the pillars of a security system, we will continue by exploring the periods and the focus of protection. The protection periods, the focus of protection and its value, together with the probable type of threat that we are facing and its impact on our tangible and intangible assets are the elements that will shape our protection strategy and determine how we allocate the seven essential security pillars and transform them into a successful security system.

Protection Periods

We usually divide protection into three phases:

• Prevention

• Reaction

• Recovery

Protection phases correspond with incident phases:

• Prevention corresponds with preparation, which consists of target selection, collection of information, and planning. The preparation phase can last long—days, months, and sometimes even years before the action.

• Reaction corresponds with action, which consists of arrival, action, and escape. Depending on the type of action, it can last a few minutes or even seconds.

• Recovery corresponds with consequences, which can have a devastating impact on people, property, morale, and so forth. Consequences can be felt for a long time after an incident.

Focus

To be able to design applicable security strategies and recognize the threat, the probability of action, and its modus operandi, understanding the protection focus is a crucial starting point. For example, our focus can be on:

• People

• Property

• Process

• Product

• Information

Our focus can also be on the combination of all of the elements with the same or different levels of priority, for example. Different strategies are applied and different resources are used depending on not only what we are protecting but what the situation is and the probable risks, protection obstacles, and worst-scenario consequences. For example, although people are our primary concern, it is different if we are protecting clerks in an office, VIPs, or patients in a hospital. If we are protecting the product, we must first understand its value in terms of the motive for committing a crime against it.

Type of Threat

If we understand the nature of what we are protecting and its value, we also understand the type of threat we are facing (terrorism, theft, hooliganism, political violence, etc.) as well as the type of perpetrators we can expect: a planned organized group, an unprofessional perpetrator, and so forth. When we talk about the type of threat, we are also talking about different probable risks associated with the probable modus operandi of perpetrators. Different types of risk are associated with different types of threat. For instance, a lone drug addict bank robber who needs money immediately is targeting a smaller amount of cash but is more likely to cause greater damage than an organized criminal group that is targeting a much larger amount of cash. A group of criminals will plan the robbery so as to accomplish their goal as efficiently as possible and is completely aware of the different consequences concerning different types of damage.

Concept of Value

One of the key elements of security is the concept of value. Security does not calculate value based on cost, but on a motive for committing crime and in terms of the justi...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Section 1. What: Define
• Section 2. Who: Arrange
• Section 3. How: Organize
• Section 4. Why: Understand
• Section 5. Where: Allocate
• Section 6. When: Measure
• Index