Like any operating business, a manufacturer needs security to function efficiently and safely. It is essential to ensure the protection of your products, data, and equipment. Without it, your business is vulnerable to theft and attack that could cost you substantially. 

However, in the modern-day, traditional security systems are no longer enough. It is unsafe to separate your security teams to deal with cyber and physical threats. A converged approach is necessary to ensure that there are no gaps in your security system for hackers or intruders to use to their advantage.

In this article, you’ll learn all about what converged security is, how you can implement it in your facility, and why you should. Converged security can bring your business into the future and provide you with the utmost protection available. It’s not something to ignore. 

What Is Converged Security?

Converged security aims to bring physical and cyber security teams together. They pool their knowledge, resources, and plans to create a unified response. Then, a converged security team could approach attacks together, strategize as one, and perform as a stronger team altogether. Converged security is the best way to protect all your assets, both physically and virtually. 

What Do Manufacturers Need To Do?

Since you know how crucial converged security is, you now need to understand how you can implement it. There are many ways to implement converged security protocols in your existing security systems. The top two ways can completely revolutionize how your security system works and protect your products. 

Install Access Control And Video Security

Every manufacturer houses some form of sensitive data on-site. Whether physical hardware or on computers, there is data that could easily attract threats. By installing integrated access control and video security at each site of sensitive data, you provide immediate protection to your assets. 

Data is one of the primary sources of theft and can put your business at tremendous risk. Any loss of data can lose you revenue and clients. Access control and video security can monitor who accesses data sites to ensure their safety. Any unauthorized presence will draw the security team’s attention, so they will be unable to access more of the facility.

Access control and video security can protect your data from attack and inform your converged team of any threats. It will streamline all processes and create better results overall. We recommend considering a warehouse security system that will be able to enforce security measures and allow for integration with your other cyber and physical security tools. 

Integrate Your Policies And Physical Systems

The premium reason to converge your security teams is to reduce any gaps in your protection. One of the main gaps lies in the threats that cloud-based technology poses. Many businesses are adopting cloud-based physical security systems due to their endless benefits. Some of these systems take the form of physical, on-premises systems that are easy to forget.

However, since these systems are cloud-based, they pose a cyber risk as well as a physical risk. Physical security teams will be ready to stop intruders from physically accessing the hardware with video footage and access control. 

However, many cyber security teams will forget about these systems and the threat they pose. Since they are cloud-based, hackers can access the system and take sensitive data if no security provisions exist. Many physical security teams lack the knowledge to put these measures in place. 

However, a converged security team would cover the hardware’s physical and cyber security threats to ensure it is safe from all types of intruders. Pairing this strategy with hybrid based systems will protect your business from unnecessarily losing data and vast sums of money. 

What Are The Benefits Of Converged Security?

There are numerous benefits to incorporating converged security into your existing system. You may think as a manufacturer that it will not protect you any more than your current system does. However, you would be wrong. Converged security could help you automate your security operations for a smoother workflow and formulate better responses to incidents. 

Automated Security Operations

A converged security team will combine all their data to improve their operations. This ensures that all team members operate on the same page with the same amount of knowledge. However, this data also has other uses. Integrated data has the potential to be leveraged to automate security operations. 

If a hacker consistently uses the same method to attempt to gain access to data, this forms a pattern. Data will take note of this pattern and automate a response to it to stop the threat in its tracks. This reduces the need to contact security and allows them to focus their efforts elsewhere. It saves time and resources while maintaining the security of your operations. 

Stronger Response To Incidents

A converged security team manages all security threats together, whether cyber or physical. This allows them to work on all threats, including those that overlap. In cases like this, the security team will be able to coordinate and work on a strategy together. They will have equal knowledge and access to data to make the best decisions together. 

With all this information, the converged security team will be able to plot out a strategy as one and formulate better strategies. Stronger and better informed strategies will help your security team to respond to incidents better and improve outcomes overall. With converged security, your security team will approach incidents better to offer improved protection to your facility.