Bank robberies have been the exciting storyline of many movies and almost romanticized in our popular culture. In reality, banks remain a target of crime in real life, and those crimes can end up tragically. In the financial industry, physical security should remain a top consideration to combat modern crimes.
Physical Security Risks in Financial Institutions
While hacking, malware, and identity theft grab headlines, bank robberies and ATM theft attempts remain a significant problem for banks and credit unions. Another area of vulnerability is the use of the arcane art of social engineering, in which bad guys disguise themselves as good guys and attempt to gain access to restricted areas by preying upon the bank employees’ desire to be good customer servants.
Special Considerations in Security
In addition to keeping customers and employees safe, physical security measures also help financial institutions meet PCI Compliance. PCI refers to payment security standards that ensure all sellers safely and securely accept, store, process, and transmit cardholder data during a credit card transaction. The standards build customers’ trust and protect banks against damaging leaks of confidential customer information.
Top Physical Security Measures for Banks
Physical security technologies are constantly evolving and so should the measures used to secure banks and other financial institutions.
Risk Assessment – Identifies your risks and gaps in security by assessing everything from lighting, infrastructure placement, transportation patterns and the proximity and types of other businesses to gauge and mitigate a financial institution’s physical vulnerabilities.
Access Control and Biometrics – Uses fingerprints and other personal identifiers to secure areas, systems, and transactions. Banks are increasingly turning to biometrics, or advanced authentication. Widespread biometrics adoption represents a long-term market shift. A report from Global Market Insights predicts that the use of the technology within financial services will grow by 22 percent between 2017 and 2024.
Convergence – Brings physical and logical security programs under a single protective umbrella. It is important to work with skilled security integrators to achieve security convergence.
Video Surveillance- Provides complete oversight of the building and critical areas. Video surveillance remains one of the most powerful physical security measures for the financial industry.
Security System Management- Brings access control, video surveillance, and other security systems under one platform for increased productivity and flexibility. Security management systems such as ProWatch, provide comprehensive options for audit and reporting to address forensics, compliance, and business intelligence data mining needs.
No one approach or solution can provide adequate security for financial institutions. For more information on helping your institution take a forward-thinking approach to physical security, call us today!
