School and campus safety is an ever evolving challenge. New threats emerge almost daily, and administrators and security personnel need a way to respond should students and staff face a dangerous situation. The foundation of any good safety plan is strong communication.
It can be expected that costs associated with cybercrime will rise in the near to medium term and have a material impact on the global economy – while putting individual citizens’ and corporations’ important data at risk by cyber criminals. Due to the convergence of an escalation in the number of security vulnerabilities, an increase in hacker capabilities and tools as well as new legislation being enacted in the European Union, the estimated costs due to cybercrime may be conservative.
Multiple cyber-attacks and compromise of personal information of millions of people globally show that the complexity and intensity of cybersecurity attacks are on the rise, and it could have broader political and economic ramifications. As cybercrimes become more lucrative and cybercriminals become smarter, cybersecurity too will have to be intelligence driven, enabling a swift response to the advanced attacks.
In 2018, we witnessed some of the biggest data breaches ever – affecting businesses and consumers alike. From social media, hospitality, healthcare and even mail delivery, 2018 proved that there is no escaping cybersecurity flaws, regardless of the type of business or its popularity. For example, we witnessed the data of approximately 500 million Marriot guests get breached and a USPS security flaw that exposed the personal data of more than 60 million people.
Many security professionals charged with either protecting us or our infrastructure have suffered from severe cut wounds during physical confrontations. Recently developed slash resistant clothing is set to make a real difference.
When traveling for business, it’s necessary for safety precautions to extend beyond the typical nine to five working parameters. Throughout the entirety of a business trip, business travelers should remain diligent around the clock, taking additional precautions to ensure their personal safety. There are several security measures both a business and its mobile workforce should keep in mind as they book business travel accommodations, check into their hotels in remote locations and conduct business while in an unfamiliar area.
Within the enterprise security and risk management community, there’s no debate about the financial impact of business downtime — a single hour of downtime can mean over $100,000 in losses for the overwhelming majority of businesses. But the consequences of downtime aren’t just monetary; they can be reputational as well.
Earthquakes. Active shooters. Tornadoes. Wildfires. Trespassers. Fires. These are all prime examples of incidents that every school needs to be and should be well-prepared for.
In government parlance, Boom is the detonation of an explosive device, initially used in speaking of a nuclear bomb. Those steeped in disaster preparedness and response now speak in terms of “left of boom” and “right of boom.” Left of boom is the planning and preparation that goes into ensuring that a device never detonates and right of boom deals with responding to a disaster, generally the man-made type. Much of what organizations do is to address left of boom.
Smaller retail and franchisee owners are among the busiest people I know. When there’s a problem, it’s usually up to them to find a solution, whether that’s troubleshooting an IT issue or dealing with staffing challenges. Add to that the fact that many owners operate multiple locations and it’s easy to understand why they are typically cautious about adopting new technologies. If the tech isn’t easy to use, or can’t demonstrate immediate and measurable benefits, realistically it’s only going to add to the ‘to do’ list.
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