IT Security from Desktop to Data Centre

The Emergency of Physical Threats.

Sometimes so much time is spent worrying about cyber-attacks that the basic problem of physical threats is ignored. The truth is, physical threats have the same potential to interrupt business processes as a hacker or virus.

There are many types of physical threats that must be factored into a security program, including theft, sabotage, human error and environmental disruption. Theft is the most obvious example, but anyone with a grudge against an organization may provide some risk of sabotage against sensitive systems. It’s also important to consider the extreme heat at the rack level caused by new data centre or server room computing strategies such as high-density environments and deployment of blade servers.

However, the hazards from ordinary activity of personnel working in the data centre or server room present an even greater day-to-day risk in most facilities. People are essential to the operation of a data centre or server room, yet studies consistently show that people are directly responsible for 60% of data centre or server room downtime through accidents and mistakes.

Protecting information systems from physical threats can easily fall into a no-man’s land. Information security professionals can be distracted by worms and viruses, while facilities personnel are spread thin trying to keep entire sites up and running. When it comes to protecting the physical infrastructure of the computing environment, each of these constituencies may have overlapping responsibilities that are unclear and result in some physical threat monitoring being left undone.

In addition to unintentionally neglecting physical security, many MIS managers continue to struggle with creating more complex rules for network access and the proliferation in both the number and complexity of passwords. The most common tool to remember these very complex and numerous user names and passwords often is a sticky note stuck to the wall or to the bottom of the keyboard, increasing security risks to the network. This all leads to an increased number of calls to the help desk, where password-related inquiries represent up to 35% of daily activity.

As a result, it’s never been more important to implement strong security solutions to maintain data centres and server rooms and ensure continuous, secure computing the desk-top level.