8B — May 29 - June 11, 2015 — Owners, Developers & Managers — M id A tlantic
Real Estate Journal
www.marejournal.com
S afety & S ecurity By Glenn Ebersole, Hollenbach Construction, Inc. How vulnerable are you and your business in 2015?
ooking back on 2014 we witnessed a significant number of events that highlighted exploitations of gaps in security and a grow- ing number of threats to our business and personal lives. A review of what happened in 2014 and “lessons learned” from those events is a manda- tory task. We can look at the events in 2014 and make some educated predictions about what security vulnerabilities are most likely to occur in 2015. Some examples of major vulnerabilities include: border security; highly contagious dis- L
eases; airport security; security at federal, state, county and local government buildings; significant hacking of millions of bank accounts, credit cards, business and personal comput- er systems, and other avenues leading to identity theft and a disruption of offering and delivering goods and services.. These gaps in our personal and business security and the increasing number of threats experienced in 2014 make a very strong case for the need to pay close attention to secu- rity vulnerabilities that will be present and exploited in 2015.
Here are some examples of what we are hearing from se- curity experts regarding what may be our REAL VULNER- ABILITIES in our personal and business lives in 2015. 1. LACK OF AWARENESS – There is strong evidence that there is a total lack of awareness of individuals and business, community and gov- ernment leaders. We need to be reminded that each one of us needs to be aware of our surroundings and what is going on there. 2. APATHY –We must guard against becoming apathetic
and complacent regarding our own security vulnerabilities. We must not think it will only happen to someone else. Thieves may not know if you are rich or if you have many items of value, but they will try to get your smart phone, computer, or credit card and when they do they will try to use them for their gain and your loss. 3. OVERCONFIDENCE – Some companies and individu- als may think they are too rich and powerful that they will not be attacked. However, look at Sony Entertainment which is
a large and rich company and how vulnerable there were to cyber-attacks. With a per- ceived and real “high reward” and imagined “low risks” by hackers, more large companies and wealthy and famous indi- viduals will eventually become a victim of a cyber-attack. 4. NO STRATEGIC THINK- ING LEADERSHIP – There continues to be a real absence of strategic thinking leadership to recognize and identify the vulnerabilities and then com- mit to and develop a strategic plan of action to address those vulnerabilities. 5. NO STRATEGIC ACTION PLAN – There is no strategic action plan to be executed with appropriate orientation and training so people will understand the plan and will be trained on how to imple- ment the plan and use the ap- propriate staff and technology included in the plan. Today we are faced with many people and organizations that want to compromise our business and personal security. They will find gaps in our secu- rity, awareness, leadership and understanding and they will exploit those vulnerabilities! Let us step back to ancient times and look at an histori- cal example of vulnerability exploitation in how the Greeks entered the city of Troy with a gift of a wooden horse. That same thought process of ex- ploiting vulnerabilities is being exhibited today and it is how attackers, hackers, criminals and daredevils get in and do what they want in our business and personal worlds. Perhaps we have increased our attention to what is hap- pening around us since 9/11, but based upon the experiences of 2014 we appear to be too complacent in our business and personal lives regard- ing our vulnerabilities. This complacency is a huge risk in that the more relaxed we become, the more likely we will not be as vigilant and will not keep our guard up. When things are going well in our business and personal lives we permit procrastination, relaxed security procedures, and unchecked policies to be- come growing vulnerabilities. And those permitted behaviors amplify our vulnerabilities and encourage, embolden and en- able those who seek to disrupt our business and our personal security! n
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