March 28, 2008—Honeywell has released survey results showing how some organizations are integrating physical security measures such as video surveillance and access control with traditional IT security systems. According to “Enterprise Threat Management and Security Convergence: A Benchmarking Study,” significant barriers still exist that prevent organizations from converging their systems and many of these organizations remain conflicted on how to attain optimal results.
More than 50 chief information officers, chief security officers and chief information and security officers of US-based global companies with revenues from 1 billion to more than 100 billion participated in the survey.
Most respondents indicated increased interaction between their security and IT functions. Specifically, 63 percent said their security and IT organizations “had a formal coordination mechanism;” 10 percent stated the two functions are run as one entity within their organizations; 52 percent noted their security functions had a formal working relationship with their audit and compliance functions; and 11 percent said those functions are combined.
The majority of respondents (nearly 73 percent) believe vulnerabilities in either physical or IT security can lead to a breach in the other system, and 91 percent of the responding companies showed an increase in security investment.
When asked whether having physical security systems on IT backbones is a security risk, 59 percent said no while 42 percent said yes. The study’s margin of error is plus/minus 2 percent.
For more information, visit the Honeywell Web site.
